Looking for Buffy Summers
by Unitarian Jihadist
Summary: Spenser BtVS crossover: Two weeks after the events in Becoming Part 2, Hank Summers hires Boston's toughest PI to find his missing daughter.
1. Chapter 1

A Spenser/BtVS crossover

Summary: Two weeks after the events in Becoming Part 2, Hank Summers hires Boston's toughest PI to find his missing daughter.

Disclaimers: This is, of course, a work of Fan Fiction, meaning that I am using characters created by other people. Buffy and associated characters are owned by Mutant Enemy and 20th Century Fox Television, Spenser and associated characters are owned by Robert B. Parker. I am using these characters without permission, and have written this strictly for my entertainment, and just perhaps, the entertainment of others. Furthermore, I am not nearly as clever as the writers for Mutant Enemy or Robert Parker. This format of this story is meant to be in the style of Parker's Spenser novels, and includes some running gag styles used by Parker.

Continuity: The events of this story take place in 1998 after the events in BtVS season 2. However, there are some intentional changes. Specifically, it is my contention that the presence of Dawn would have resulted in some historical changes, actual or remembered. One of the things that allowed Buffy to keep her slaying from her mother was that Joyce was frequently gone on business trips etc., allowing Buffy free reign. With a little sister, that free reign would have vanished. Furthermore, Joyce's direct assistance would have been required to continue to keep Dawn safe. Thus, in my fic Joyce has already known that Buffy was the slayer for well over a year. Also, the time of this story occurs simultaneously with the Spenser novel _Sudden Mischief_, which had a significant impact on the life of Susan Silverman. I could not think of how to integrate the events of that story into this fic, so I didn't even try.

With these things in mind, here we go….

________________________________________________________________________

It was a humid June afternoon in Boston and I was in my office talking to a man named Hank Summers. Summers was a handsome guy just above medium height, in his forties, and looked like he may have played football in high school. He had close cropped brown hair and was dressed casual in a pair of grey slacks and an open collared light blue shirt. His shoes were polished and cordovan and his watch was a Rolex. Sitting next to him was his wife Heather, who looked to be in her early twenties. She had a good body, was wearing a short pink skirt with matching pink jacket, and a white top that showed just enough cleavage to be both suggestive and tasteful. All the skin on display was well tanned. I might have found her more attractive, but she kept turning and making unpleasant faces at Pearl the wonder dog. Pearl was lying on the couch Susan had bought me awhile back. I had custody of the baby today, but was fondly anticipating transferring custody back to Susan that night. Nothing against Pearl, but I was looking forward to dinner and more with the love of my life. Pearl, for her part, didn't appear to be concerned about Heather Summers' disapproval. She just looked back and forth between the three of us, probably hoping the Summers had the good manners to bring doggie treats. I suspected she was being overly optimistic.

Hank Summers gave me his "I'm an important businessman seriously appraising you" look. I think I managed to withstand his scrutiny without blushing. He then nodded to himself, and took a folder out of his briefcase.

"This is about my daughter," he said. "She ran away from home about two weeks ago. I'd like you to find her."

He took out a photograph and handed it to me. It was a school photograph, and the girl who smiled out of it was a cute blond, maybe fifteen or sixteen.

"Pretty," I said.

"That's her sophomore picture. She's a junior now, or was. Up until a year and a half ago, she was a very popular, very outgoing girl. She was the Freshman Homecoming Princess and the Belle of the Sophomore Ball."

"And now?"

"Now?" Summers said.

"The terminology 'up until' would suggest that your daughter's social status changed."

"Oh. Well, now she gets into trouble a lot."

"What kind of trouble?"

"Mostly skipping out of school, occasional fighting."

"Fighting?"

"Mr. Spenser, have you heard of Hemery High, in Los Angeles?"

"There was a riot during a senior dance about a year and a half ago. Twelve students and one faculty member were killed. The gymnasium was burned to the ground."

"Everyone remembers," Summers said. "It was all over the news for weeks."

"And your daughter is a student there?"

"She was. She isn't anymore."

"Was she at the dance?"

"Yes she was. A senior kid took her, some punk hoodlum. I forget his name. I think it was Spike."

"Just 'some punk' or 'some hoodlum' would be sufficient," I said. "The term 'punk hoodlum' is redundant."

Summers gave me a look.

"Sorry, I have the reputation of being something of a smartass," I said.

"So I was told," Summers said. "May I continue?"

"Sure," I said. He didn't look like he appreciated my help with his semantics. I get that a lot.

"At first, Buffy was actually accused of being the student who set fire to the gym. That was crazy, of course. She was later cleared of all charges, but the school still expelled her."

_Buffy Summers? _I thought I might run away too if I was given a name like that. It sounded like an adult movie star's stage name. I wisely decided to keep that thought to myself.

"Why did the police think that your daughter burned down the gymnasium?"

"Some witnesses said they saw her set the fire. But later, they said they weren't sure. The arson investigator eventually ruled that it was an electrical fire caused by damage to the sound equipment during the riot."

"And why did Hemery expel her?"

"She was involved in the fighting. Almost every student at the dance was either suspended or expelled."

"So do you know why she was expelled instead of suspended?" I said.

"According to several witnesses, two groups of students were fighting. Buffy was identified as the leader of one of the sides."

I looked back at Buffy Summers' picture. She didn't look like she would be the leader of a rioting gang of teenagers.

Summers took a deep breath, clasped his hands on my desk, and closed his eyes. I suspected a pose designed to communicate "I'm a concerned father". Mrs. Summers looked at my dog again and wrinkled her nose. I reached over and rubbed Pearl's ears. Mrs. Summers wrinkled her nose even more. I wondered if Mrs. Summers' face would implode around her nose if I continued to pet Pearl. I decided not to find out, and pulled my hand away. Pearl looked disappointed. Mrs. Summers looked relieved.

"Mr. Summers," I said. "That was a year and a half ago. Where did Buffy run away from two weeks ago?"

"Sunnydale, California. It's a small college town about an hour and a half, two hours north of LA. My ex took the kids there after the divorce. Probably seemed like a quiet place for a fresh start."

"What's her name?"

"My ex?"

I smiled. He looked at me.

"Silly question isn't it?" he said.

"Little bit," I said.

"Joyce Summers."

"And how many kids?"

"Two," Summers said. "Two girls. Buffy's the oldest. Dawn's turning twelve this month."

Mrs. Summers looked at her husband, then looked at her watch.

"Hank," she said. "How much longer is this going to be?"

Heather Summers' voice was high pitched, nasal and childlike, and she managed to combine all that into an annoying whine. Pearl flinched. So did Hank Summers.

"Honey, this is about my missing daughter. Mr. Spenser needs to ask me questions in order to better search for her."

Actually, I was asking questions to determine whether I even wanted to take this case. Missing children cases usually ended up making my back teeth hurt. The people I met on these cases tended to be either royally screwed up, really stupid, or just plain reprehensible, making it understandable why a teenager would run away from home. Or maybe I was just cynical.

"But, Hank!" Mrs. Summers made "Hank" into a two syllable word, "hey" and "ank". Pearl gave me a "make it stop" look.

"Please be quiet, Heather." Summers said. "I need to talk with Spenser here, and it won't kill you to sit quietly until we're done."

Heather pouted, but mercifully stopped speaking.

"So, Mr. Summers," I said. "Tell me what happened just before Buffy ran away from Sunnydale."


	2. Chapter 2

"So what do you think?"

The evening after I met with Hank Summers, Susan and I were eating dinner in her home in Cambridge. I'd made a stir fry with shrimp in a light ginger sauce and a salad with a lemon and mayo dressing. Susan was scarfing it down, which in her case meant taking the equivalent of a full bite per minute.

"This sounds like it has the potential to be a fucking mess," Susan said between bites.

"Is that shrink terminology?" I said.

"It is."

I waited. Susan was concentrating, and I loved to watch her when she concentrated. In fact, I pretty much loved to watch her no matter what she was doing.

"After the Hemery High tragedy, several of the survivors were reported to display the symptoms of intense Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This girl Betty…"

"Buffy."

"_Buffy_ Summers? Good lord!"

I waited for Susan to recover.

"Buffy Summers appears to have suffered from these symptoms as well. And when Buffy's parents learned that she wrote about 'fighting monsters' in her diary, they placed her into an acute care psychiatric treatment facility, which probably only served to aggravate the existing trauma."

Susan took another bite, almost quarter sized.

"And when Buffy gets out, she finds her parents divorced and her mother alone," I said.

"You don't approve," Susan said.

"No, I don't. Divorcing your wife is one thing. Leaving your kids after one of them has suffered severe trauma is quite another. Hank left his first wife holding the bag. Besides, you didn't meet the new Mrs Summers."

Susan smiled. "I take it you don't like her."

"She's a midlife crisis trophy wife with the maturity of a two year old and maybe half the IQ of Pearl."

"It's not an uncommon pattern," Susan said. "And you haven't met the old Mrs. Summers yet. She might be worse."

"Horrible to contemplate," I said. "And what do you think of Buffy bringing a sword to school?"

"That, on the other hand, _is_ an uncommon pattern."

"Summers says that Buffy was cleared of the arson charges from Hemery. But then, a year and half later at Sunnydale High, a girl is found in the school library with her throat slashed, and Buffy Summers is standing over her. Later, the principal says he saw Buffy in the library carrying a sword."

"Trouble does seem to follow this girl around," Susan said. "But the Sunnydale Police Department cleared her of involvement in the girl's death, correct?"

"Yeah, three witnesses told the police that Buffy wasn't in the library when the girl was killed, even though police found her standing next to the body."

"Did they identify who the killer or killers were?"

"Sort of, they said they were attacked by a gang of some sort. But a gang that apparently uses medieval weaponry instead of guns. And this gang has yet to be apprehended."

"Similar to the story witnesses told about the dance at Hemery a year and a half earlier."

"Yep."

"This suggests a pattern that is disturbing."

"Yep."

"And you've agreed to look into it."

"Yep."

Susan picked up the pace of her eating, taking another quarter bite.

"Be careful. Sounds like a fucking mess to me," she said after she swallowed.

"Yep," I said.


	3. Chapter 3

The next day, after depositing Hank Summers' check I took the earliest available flight to Los Angeles. Two hours after arriving, I was sitting in front of the desk of Lt. Mark Samuelson of the LAPD. Samuelson looked the same as when I saw him last, walrus mustache combined with an otherwise hairless head. His jacket was draped over the back of his chair but his shirt was white and starched, and his tie was unloosened. He still wore tinted aviator glasses.

"Spoke with a man named Hank Summers about his daughter Buffy," I said.

"Not surprising, since I gave Summers your name. He offices out of LA but moves around a lot."

"And he was in New York when he called you for references. Thanks for the business."

"No problem. I told him you were a smart mouth who wasn't half as funny as he thought he was, but that you might be able to help."

"I understand you worked Hemery."

"Well, since kids died and even more disappeared, it was thought that homicide ought to take a look. We don't always sit around eating donuts."

As he spoke, Samuelson pushed a box of donuts towards me. I took one gratefully. Samuelson didn't look like he spent much time sitting around eating donuts.

"Tell me about Buffy Summers." I tried not to blush as I said the name.

"According to witnesses, including Miss Summers, the students at the dance were attacked. Miss Summers, according to many of these witnesses, but not herself, led the students against the attackers." Samuelson gave no indication that he noticed me trying to suppress a blush, but then I noticed he avoided actually saying _Buffy _Summers.

"Some of the attackers were identified as students themselves?"

"Yeah, but here's the weird thing. Actually just one of the weird things. None of the students identified as the attackers were ever found, alive or dead."

"What else was weird?"

"Well, first there's Miss Summers herself. Five foot two, maybe five foot three at the outside, and probably no more than 110 pounds soaking wet. But, according to several of the surviving witnesses, she was the second coming of Xena."

"OK, weird. What else?"

"The leader of the attackers supposedly had a sword. Buffy was said to have fought him with a flag pole. She supposedly broke the flag pole in half and stabbed the guy to death with it. But there was no body, and no sword."

"I didn't hear that in the news."

"I was at the crime scene that night. That's when the witnesses reported the exploits of Xena Summers. By the next morning, none of the witnesses were willing to repeat the story."

"You just don't want to say 'Buffy Summers' do you?"

"Would you? I got a girl that age at home. Giving a girl a name like that is child abuse."

"Anyway, what happened when your witnesses changed the story?"

"Ultimately nothing. There was no physical evidence for a guy with a sword, much less a dead guy with a sword. The fire was pretty destructive."

"But you should have found something."

"Hell yeah."

"So what was the final disposition of the case?"

"You sure talk fancy for a gumshoe," Samuelson said.

"I date a woman with a Ph.D."

"Good for you. The case was given to a task force."

"Were you on the task force?"

"Nope, and neither was anyone else I knew."

"That's weird too," I said.

"Yeah," said Samuelson. "It is."

"And did the task force resolve the case?"

"The official task force report said that gang fighting had moved out to the suburbs."

"And did the task force resolve the case?"

"Nope."


	4. Chapter 4

I took the Big Sur Highway north to Sunnydale. As long as I was renting a car, I figured I might as well enjoy the drive. According to my California map, Sunnydale officially had a population of 32,614, although the city was also home to several colleges, the biggest being UC Sunnydale with an enrollment of over 15,000, so the number of people in the city at any one time was probably a good deal more. There was also a small army base, Fort Wilkins, located 14 miles to the north. The city itself was shaped like an uneven barbell with developed east and west ends, and a strip (appropriately named Main Street) that connected the two ends. The east end was by far the larger end, containing almost all the residential areas, all the universities and colleges, and downtown. The west end was connected to the ocean, and consisted primarily of shipping docks, warehouses, and shipping and trading companies. The strip between the two ends was Generica, lined with convenience stores, hotels, and strip malls, as well as Sunnydale's actual mall.

Joyce Summers owned a small art import gallery located in the west end. I'd called her before I left from Boston. She did not sound enthusiastic, but she agreed to meet me at her office.

The art gallery was housed in a red brick building located in the only part of Sunnydale's west end that could be considered upscale. It was next to a coffee shop and another art import gallery. The name on the sign said simply, "Joyce's".

Inside, the gallery itself was well laid out, clean, and eclectic. It smelled of several different types of incense. A man of about 30, with the left side of his head shaved and the jet black hair on the right side of his head cut in a pageboy, was polishing some statuary and looked up when I walked in. I introduced myself, handed him my card, and asked to see Joyce Summers.

He looked me up and down.

"You don't look like an art collector." His voice was soft.

"I am offended by your judging me on appearances. How do you know I don't collect art? You should see my collection of velvet prints of Elvis and poker playing dogs."

Half hair didn't smile, but he didn't scowl either. So far as I could tell, he had already lost any interest in whatever else I might have to say.

"I'll see if she's in."

"That's all right, Alfonse. I'm expecting Mr. Spenser."

Alfonse nodded and went back to taking statuary out of a crate, polishing it, and putting it on the shelf.

Joyce Summers, I immediately decided, was much better looking than her successor. A tall woman with light brown hair that curled around the shoulders, she was well shaped, if slightly matronly in appearance. She was wearing a grey jacket with matching skirt, and a bright lime green blouse. Her makeup was light and tastefully applied. She wore simple earrings and a white bead bracelet on her right wrist. When she shook my hand, her grip was firm.

"Mr. Spenser, I'm Joyce Summers," she said. "We can meet in my office, it's upstairs in the loft. I've found it possible to have private conversations there even without the full walls."

I followed Joyce up a wooden spiral staircase to her loft. She had a simple oak desk, and on that desk there were some statues that looked to be from Africa, maybe the Caribbean. Also prominently displayed were school pictures of two girls. Buffy's picture was different than the one Hank Summers showed me. The new picture showed a young woman who was still very pretty, with slightly shorter blond hair. She had matured considerably. The other picture was of a girl with long brown hair who looked to be in elementary school. Dawn Summers. Joyce's office was bordered by a dark wood planked half-wall that came up to just above my waist. Looking over it, one could see into almost the entire gallery.

Leaning against the half wall opposite of the stairway, by a small file cabinet, was a tall, rangy looking man. He looked to be in his forties, had oval rimmed wire glasses and close cropped brown hair. In spite of the fact that it was June in southern California, he wore a full grey suit with vest over a blue shirt and a darker blue tie. He was about my height but probably gave up thirty to forty pounds to me. At first, I thought he might be an accountant or a lawyer. He might have still been an accountant or lawyer, but he was also more than that. When he looked right at me, I realized that this was a dangerous man.

"Mr. Spenser, this is Mr. Giles," Joyce said. "He is here as a….friend of Buffy's."

Giles and I shook hands. His grip was very strong.

"Mr. Spenser," he said. "A pleasure."

He spoke in a crisp British accent, and his tone made it clear that he was unsure as to whether he would really find it a pleasure to meet me.

Joyce motioned me to a client chair in front of her desk. She sat behind her desk. Giles resumed his post at the half-wall.

"So Hank hired you to look for Buffy."

"He did."

"Would have been nice if he had consulted me," she said. "Considering that he hasn't shown much other interest in her this year."

"Can't say that I disagree with you," I said. "Still, I would guess that you would be very interested in finding your daughter."

"Absolutely."

"I'm pretty good at tracking people down. I can help."

Joyce closed her eyes and took a deep breath. I couldn't tell if she was trying to keep from crying.

"What can you tell me about the day she ran away?" I said.

Joyce looked at Giles. Giles gave a light cough and looked at me. Joyce was clearly deferring to him.

"Then again," I said, looking at Giles. "Maybe I should start by talking to you."

Joyce looked from Giles to me. I looked at Giles. Giles picked an imaginary piece of lint off of his jacket sleeve with his left hand. I noticed that his index finger and middle finger were in splints. Then, he looked up at me.

"First of all, Mr. Spenser, I want you to understand that I am in no way placing Mrs. Summers under duress. She is free to speak to you about Buffy as much as she would like."

"That's mighty kind of you, considering she's the mother and you're…what are you again?"

Giles smiled tightly, but his eyes glittered. "As Joyce said, I am a friend. I am also the librarian at her school."

"And yet, here she is looking to you before deciding what to say."

"Joyce is looking to me because Buffy's situation is, shall we say, complex. I have some knowledge of that situation that she does not, so she is looking to me for advice as to what to say. But, just to be clear, I am using no threat, real or implied, to control what she tells you."

I could tell he was telling the truth. It was also clear he understood how this situation might be seen by someone in my position.

I tried to think about what to do next. It was clear that there was quite a bit that they weren't going to tell me. On the face of it, that made no sense. A runaway teenage girl was at risk for all sorts of hurt. I decided to see what they would tell me, and see if I could learn anything from what they wouldn't tell me.

"So, the day before Buffy ran away, a girl was found dead in the library," I said.

"Yes," Giles said. "That's correct."

"A student?"

"More like a visitor."

"This visitor have a name?"

"Kendra. No last name."

"And where did she visit from?"

"Jamaica I believe."

"What was someone from Jamaica doing in Sunnydale High?"

Giles didn't say anything.

"Did it have something to do with the reason Buffy ran away?"

Giles still didn't say anything.

"Jesus Christ," I said. I looked at Joyce.

"Do you have anything to say to me at all?"

Joyce looked at me. "Buffy and I had a fight, the night before she ran off."

"What was the fight about?"

"I tried to forbid her from going out that night. She left anyway."

"And?"

"When we were arguing, I told her that if she went out the door, not to come back."

Joyce placed her head in her hands, but she didn't cry.

"I was angry, but I really didn't mean it. Unfortunately, Buffy was and is a 17 year old girl, Mr. Spenser. She is many other things, but she is still a girl, and I'm afraid she took my words at face value."

Joyce took a deep breath and looked at me. She remained composed.

"Why did Buffy feel it was so imperative to go out that night?"

Joyce looked at Giles, who shook his head.

I sat and waited, but nobody said anything. Nobody was going to say anything. I got up when I couldn't stand it anymore.

"If you think of anything you _can _tell me, give me a call." I handed Joyce my card. I didn't even bother with Giles the scary librarian.


	5. Chapter 5

The Sunnydale Police Department was huge, housed in a downtown four story brick building. It looked to be about three times too big for a city the size of Sunnydale. I walked through the big automatic doors. There was a big desk and a big desk sergeant who looked like he ate a lot more donuts than Lt. Samuelson. He had a square head, his sandy hair was cut in a crew cut, and he had a clipped patrolman style mustache. The name on his badge said Gerrick.

I introduced myself and handed him my card.

"So what is your business here in Sunnydale, Mr. Spenser?"

"I'm looking into a missing person case."

"Did the person go missing from Sunnydale?"

"She did."

Gerrick chuckled.

"Good luck," he said.

"This one is connected to a homicide at Sunnydale High School. Girl by the name of Kendra."

"Yeah, I know about it," Garrick said. He picked up the phone and punched in a number. "Hey, Stein there? Send him down. Got a private dick from Boston (he pronounced it Baahhstuhn) wants to talk with him."

Gerrick listened briefly, then hung up and jerked his head towards a row of chairs. "Have a seat. Detective Stein will be down to talk to you in a second."

"Sure," I said. "Private dick. You're a real traditional guy, Gerrick."

Gerrick looked at me and jerked his head towards the chairs again.

"Authentic and friendly too."

Gerrick turned away and started to read a sheet of paper. The way he was engrossed in the paper, I figured he was getting the latest price quotes for donuts. I went over and sat down.

About 20 minutes later Detective Stein came down. He was a balding guy, short. What hair he had was light blond. He had a kind of arrogant half smile as he came over to me.

"You Spenser?" he said.

I resisted the impulse to narrow my eyes and say _Who wants to know?_

Instead I said, "I am."

Stein didn't offer his hand. Just stood and looked at me and crossed his arms.

"What interest do you have in the Kendra case?"

"Other than a constant urge to see that justice is done? It's connected to a missing person case I'm working."

His eyes narrowed, and the half smile left his face. "Who's the missing person?"

"Buffy Summers."

This time, I didn't even have the urge to blush when I said it.

Stein's eyes narrowed further. He looked back, and a couple of patrolmen came over. Then he looked at me.

"Blow," he said, jerking his head to the front door.

"Pardon?" I said.

"I said blow." Stein's face was starting to get a little red. The other two cops were now standing on either side of me, giving me hard looks. Even Gerrick had managed to tear himself away from his paper and push himself to an upright position.

"Buffy Summers," I said again, just to see their reaction. Stein actually flinched.

"Get out of here, Spenser, or we'll give you a room upstairs."

I knew what he meant. The narrow windows on the top floor of the police building were basic jail cell.

"So, Stein, why does saying the name of a 17 year old erstwhile homecoming princess result in a threat to throw me in jail?"

"Get out, Spenser. We're done." Two more uniforms, one man and one woman, were approaching. Gerrick had managed to move his bulk around the desk.

Stein started to count. "1…2…"

I said the name "Buffy Summers" after every count, like "Mississippi".

"3…"

"Buffysummers."

"4…"

"Buffysummers."

I looked around. Stein's face was red, and several of the uniforms had their hands on or hovering over their guns. I wasn't going to win this. So I turned and left.

But not until Stein had counted 8.


	6. Chapter 6

I checked into a Best Western located right in the middle of the Sunnydale strip between the two ends of the city. It had an exercise room by the swimming pool, so I hit the weights and thought about Buffy and Joyce Summers, Mr. Giles and the Sunnydale police department. There were a couple of attractive women in their early twenties sitting in the hot tub, and I stole some glances at them as I lifted. I think they stole glances at me as well. I tried not to flex excessively. I wasn't sure the women could control themselves and I was in a committed relationship. Despite my misgivings, the women stayed in the hot tub until they got out and wrapped towels around their waists and left. I continued to lift and think about the case. When I was done, I had acquired an enormous appetite and a considerable headache, but I hadn't really made any headway. The whole situation was squirrelly.

I ate a T-Bone in the hotel restaurant to address the hunger, then I went into my room and called Susan to address the headache.

"Just a minute," Susan said. "Pearl honey, get down."

There was a slight strain in her voice.

"Our aging baby drape herself on you again?"

"That she did."

"So what were you reading?" Susan only sat on the couch in order to read, and to allow Pearl to lay across her lap.

"Professional journal," Susan said. "How is the case going?"

I told her.

"How typical is it for police departments to kick you out of their building when you ask them about a case?" she asked when I was done.

"Not typical at all," I said. "Police officers aren't always a chatty bunch, and at times they tend not to like me, particularly the ones who know me. But to kick me out just because I said the name _Buffy Summers _is extremely weird behavior. Have to honestly say I was flabbergasted"

"Is 'weird' an official diagnosis?"

"Yeah, the Sunnydale PD is officially weird."

"Why do you think this Detective Stein reacted the way he did?"

"I don't know what to think. If he simply didn't want to talk about the case, he could have told me he wasn't going to talk about the case."

"But according to what you said, this seemed to be about Buffy Summers, not the murder case."

"It did."

"Any idea why?"

"None whatsoever. It appears that no one wants to talk about Buffy Summers, not even her mother, who by the way is nowhere near as bad as the second Mrs. Summers."

"Perhaps the Sunnydale Police Department answers to this Mr. Giles as well."

"I have no idea what to think."

Susan was silent for a minute.

"Tell me what your feelings were when you talked to Buffy's mother," Susan said. "Maybe your impressions will suggest something."

"Joyce Summers was not willing to tell me anything about her daughter that Giles didn't want her to. But, that was Mrs. Summers' decision, not his."

"And he went out of his way to tell you that."

"He did."

"Which means that if she did choose to tell you something that he didn't want you to know, he wouldn't have tried to stop her."

"That's correct."

"What was your impression of Giles?"

"My first impression was that he was bookish, kind of a big nerd. But then, when he looked at me, I got a very different impression."

"And that was?"

"Scary," I said.

"How do you mean, scary?"

"I mean like Hawk."

"That's scary," Susan said. "And not something one would expect from a high school librarian. Do you think there is anything improper between Giles and Buffy?"

"Maybe, but if there is it's not sexual."

"Why do you say that?"

"I don't think that Joyce Summers would permit it, much less let him in her office if that were going on."

"But you just said that you thought Giles was 'scary'."

"Yes, but Joyce wasn't scared of him. And for that matter I also didn't get the impression that she liked him much. But she respected him."

"So again, what feeling did you get from Giles about his potential relationship to Buffy?"

"I think he cares about her," I said. "I think they both care about her."

"So why wouldn't they want her found? This is a 17 year old runaway, living just to the north of Los Angeles, which has the reputation for chewing up teenage runaways by the hundreds. You are very aware of the things that can happen to runaway girls."

"I don't think they are worried about that," I said. "They're worried about something else."

"Any feeling about what that might be? An impression that you can't explain?"

I thought about it.

"Giles is like Alfred."

"Pardon?"

"He's like Alfred," I said. "Bruce Wayne's butler."

"Meaning?"

"It's like he was covering for a superhero."


	7. Chapter 7

With the Sunnydale PD suffering from an extreme case of the weirds, as a precaution I told Susan to let Hawk know where I was and what I was doing. The next morning, I drove over to Sunnydale High School. The High School was built on a slight hill right in the middle of the east end of the city. The building was big and empty and locked except for the front door. I went into the office and there was no one at the front desk, but there was an old fashioned summoning bell. I rang it.

A man strutted out. He was dressed in an expensive looking suit, and may have topped 5 feet tall. He was bald and had a face like Max Schreck from Nosferatu.

He looked me up and down.

"May I help you?" he said.

I suspected the real question was: _What the hell are you doing here?_

I introduced myself and handed him my card. He looked at the card and narrowed his eyes. He looked like a cross between a man and a mole rat.

"So what is a private investigator from Boston doing here?"

"I am looking for a kid who ran away. She went to school here."

"Really? Who?"

"Buffy Summers."

The look on the dapper, rat-like man's face became far away and dreamy. He smiled.

"Buffy Summers ran away," he said softly to himself. "That's just perfect."

Then he turned and looked at me. His face transitioned from happy to concerned.

"You aren't here to find her and bring her back, are you?"

"That's generally what private investigators do in missing person cases, especially involving minors," I said. "Of course, being an educator, you would want a minor to be returned home, wouldn't you?"

"Of course," he said. He looked a little uncomfortable, like he had been caught being a little too truthful. "It's not like I want anything bad to actually happen to the poor child."

"Of course not," I said. "And who are you again?"

Rat man pulled himself up to his full, teeny tiny height.

"I am Mr. Snyder, the Principal here at Sunnydale High."

"Pleasure to meet you. So why are you hoping Buffy Summers doesn't come back?"

"She can't come back," he said. "She was expelled."

"Why was she expelled?"

"Why? She was found crouching over the body of a murdered girl, for one thing!"

"But she was cleared of that murder."

"Well yes, because the only witnesses were her friends and that librarian."

"Mr. Giles."

"Yes. Mr. Giles."

"And who were the friends?"

"Xander Harris, Cordelia Chase, and Willow Rosenberg."

I wrote down the names.

"They're all students?"

"Yes," Snyder said. "Rosenberg is a brilliant student. I have no idea why she associates herself with a troublemaker like Buffy Summers."

"And why was Buffy expelled?"

"She's violent and disruptive and a rule breaker. Disorder follows her wherever she goes. I have no tolerance for the kind of disorder a Buffy Summers brings. I run a tight ship!"

"So do the kids here call you 'Herr Snyder'?"

"What?"

"What kind of violent and disruptive behavior did Miss Summers engage in?"

"Well, for example, when she was found with the body of the other girl, the police tried to arrest her. But when the officer was starting to cuff her and read her her rights, she judo threw him over her shoulder and ran away. The other officer tried to shoot her but missed, and I had to replace a window."

"That's pretty violent and disruptive," I said.

"That's not the end of it. Later that night, I found Buffy back in the library, which by then was a crime scene. She'd torn down the crime tape, and she was walking out with a sword."

"I can see why you suspended her."

"Expelled," Snyder said. "I expelled her."

"Of course," I said. "I'm not an educational professional, I get the terms mixed up."

Snyder nodded indulgently. I had pretty much decided he was a creep, but he was a lot more forthcoming than anyone else I had talked to in Sunnydale so far.

"Where do you think she got the sword?"

"I have no idea, but bringing weapons to school is grounds for expulsion."

"Of course it is," I said. "Why do you think she came back to the library?"

"Maybe to cover up evidence of the crime?"

"That would be pretty dumb," I said. "Cops are pretty good at determining when a crime scene was tampered with. If the perpetrator messes with the scene, that simply further contaminates the scene and implicates said perpetrator."

"I didn't say that I thought Buffy Summers was smart," Snyder said. "And it really doesn't matter to me why she came back. She had no business being here no matter what the reason was."

"Of course," I said. "Still, I have to wonder why she came back here. Why she was walking out of the library with a sword? Do you think that the sword was in the library, and Buffy went back to retrieve it?"

"Maybe, particularly if it was the murder weapon."

"Could be, but I am curious why she was able to hide the weapon in the library so that the police wouldn't find it, and yet not be able to hide herself."

"I don't know, and like I said, I don't care."

"I understand. I'm wondering if it is possible that the sword was already stored in the library."

"This is a high school, Mr. Spenser," Snyder said. "We don't allow weapons here."

"Of course. But a school library might be the place to hide things, correct? Things you wouldn't want the school administration to see?"

For the first time, Snyder actually seemed to look a little nervous. He paled slightly.

"That is a question I would suggest you direct to the librarian."

"Mr. Giles."

"That's correct." Snyder seemed to pale a little more, and looked around furtively as if he expected Giles to jump out at him from around the corner.

"Well hello."

Snyder actually jumped, and I admit to a little surge of adrenaline myself, although I managed to stay on the ground. I turned to see Giles standing at the office door

"Hello, Rupert," Snyder said. He tried to sound formal and in charge, but his eyes and face, and the small step he took back, indicated that he wasn't sure he was in charge.

"Mr. Spenser. Snyder."

I noticed the liberty Giles took by dropping the _Mister _in addressing Snyder. It was a deliberate slight, but Snyder chose not to react to it.

Snyder looked at me, then Giles.

"Gentlemen, if you will excuse me, I have work to do in my office," Snyder said. "Mr. Giles, I believe Mr. Spenser may have some questions for you."

"Thank you for your help," I said to Snyder's back.

Snyder didn't acknowledge me and went into his office.

I turned towards Giles.

"Hello, Rupert," I said, smiling.

Giles' lips retracted slightly while remaining pursed in the most formal and perfunctory of smiles. The smile did not reach his eyes.

"Mr. Spenser, why don't we talk in the library," he said.

"Sure."

I followed Rupert Giles down the hall until we came to a set of double wooden doors with the sign "Library" up above it. Giles took out his keys and unlocked the left door, pulled it open and gestured for me to go in.

The library was much like the Sunnydale Police Department, much larger than one would expect for a high school library. In fact, I would not have been surprised if the city library was smaller. The library was shaped like a hexagon. There was a large checkout desk to our right, and a large meeting area with a large desk in the middle. Then, there was a small stairway to a second level that ringed four sides of the first floor, and this floor was full of book shelves. The library, with both levels combined, was probably as big as most school auditoriums.

"So," I said. "Are you going to tell me more this go around?"

"Probably not," Giles said.

I looked at him hard. He looked back.

"I will find her," I said. "Like I told you and Joyce before, I'm good at this and I don't give up."

"Good," Giles said. "I sincerely hope you do find her. Indeed, nothing would make me happier than for you to find Buffy safe and sound and return her home. My obstructionism has nothing to do with me trying to keep you from finding her. I have other reasons entirely."

"And you're not going to tell me what those reasons are."

"No I am not."

I looked hard at Giles. Giles in response seemed entirely unmoved, neither angry nor scared. He was still and quiet and I suspected potentially deadly.

"What happened to your fingers, Rupert?"

"They were broken."

"Accidentally?"

"No."

"Did Buffy break them?"

"No."

"Who broke them?"

Giles smiled slightly again by retracting his lips.

"Did the same individual who broke your fingers kill Kendra?"

Giles continued to smile.

"Did _you _kill Kendra?"

Giles blinked, and for a brief moment actually looked a little flustered.

"Good heavens, no," he said.

"Glad we were able to get _something_ straight," I said.


	8. Chapter 8

Cordelia Chase had her own phone number. When I called it, I got a recorded message.

"This is Cordelia. If you are calling me right now, you aren't up on current events and you can't be that close a friend, because if you were you'd know I was in Mexico until August 18. Leave me a message, and if I care enough I'll get back to you."

I tried Willow Rosenberg next. There were 3 Rosenbergs in the phonebook. Since Snyder characterized Willow as "a brilliant student" I took a chance on the entry for Dr. Ira and Dr. Sheila Rosenberg. I got an answer on the third ring.

"Hello?" the voice sounded young and female. Promising.

"Willow Rosenberg?"

"Uhm, yes. May I ask who is calling?"

Spenser, sleuth supreme, I thought. But I simply said my name.

"Oh! You're the private investigator who's looking for Buffy!"

"Yes I am. How did you know that?"

"Well, Gi….uhmmm…Dawn told me."

"Buffy's sister."

"Yeah. You talked to Mrs. Summers yesterday."

"I did," I said. "May I talk to you?"

"Uhm."

"Didn't mean to stump you."

"Oh that's OK," Willow said. Then she started talking again to someone who must have been in the house with her.

"I'm talking to that Spenser guy. He wants to ask me questions about Buffy."

Pause, there was another voice, male, that I couldn't make out. I heard Willow put her hand over the speaker. But I could still hear some of what she was saying.

"I know…Xander….Giles…but what if….OK."

The phone clicked, then was picked up again.

"Oh, uhm, sorry. Can't talk. 'Bye!"

Then Willow hung up the phone for good.

There were five Harrises listed in the phone book. I got answering machines for all five. I looked up the Rosenberg's entry again and got the address. Then I got in the rental car and drove to the Rosenberg's.

The Rosenberg house was a largish two story bungalow, probably built in the 1920's, a bit smaller than one would expect for a couple of doctors. An ancient Citroen was parked in front of the driveway, and as I approached the front porch of the house the front door opened and Rupert Giles came out.

"Well, Rupert, you get around."

"As do you, Mr. Spenser."

The door opened again and a short, red headed teenage girl came out. She was wearing overalls, Keds, and a short sleeved yellow shirt. Following her was a teenage boy about medium height, slim, with very dark hair, wearing blue jeans and an open blue and white plaid shirt over a grey t-shirt. He had a short cast on his right forearm.

I looked at the girl.

"Willow Rosenberg I presume." She ducked her head and blushed a little and looked guilty.

I turned to the boy. "And by any chance are you Xander Harris?"

The boy looked at Willow.

"Boy, he's good," Xander said.

Giles moved between me and the two kids.

"You are not talking to these two," he said.

"Giles, Giles, Giles," I said. "You keep saying that you actually want me to find Buffy, but everywhere I turn, here you are getting in the way."

"Maybe he can help, Giles," Willow said.

"Willow, you know as well as I do that there are things about Buffy we can not discuss with strangers," Giles said. "Mr. Spenser may be well intentioned, but we all have a trust to keep."

"And what would that trust be, Rupert?" I said.

"If I told you, it wouldn't be a trust now would it?" Giles said. "And by the way, have I ever told you how much I like people I don't know calling me 'Rupert'?"

Giles approached me, stopping just out of easy reach, and took off his glasses. His eyes glittered.

"Giles?" Willow said. "You aren't going to fight him are you? He looks kinda muscley."

"Yeah, Giles...he looks pretty big and pretty well developed. And he looks like he's been in a few fights already," Xander said.

Giles didn't take his eyes off me.

"I assure you, Xander, if push came to shove I could handle myself," Giles said. "But it hasn't come to that yet. Has it, Mr. Spenser?"

"No, it hasn't," I said. "But I am starting to lose patience with you being the gatekeeper to all things Buffy."

Giles looked at me and put on his glasses, smiling that slight smile of his.

"That's a pretty good description of my role here actually."


	9. Chapter 9

I went back to the hotel room and thought about Rupert Giles. Everywhere I tried to look, he was there controlling the flow of information. For all I knew, he was the reason why the Sunnydale Police Department acted so squirrelly as soon as I mentioned the name Buffy Summers. I tried to look up Rupert Giles in the phonebook but didn't find an entry. I thought about calling Principal Snyder and asking for Giles' address and phone number. I didn't think Snyder liked Giles very much, so I thought my chances were pretty good.

I was picking up the phone when there was a knock on my room door.

Given the established weird nature of the SPD, not to mention the more subtle warnings from Rupert Giles, I picked up my gun as I stood up and held it against my right leg.

"Who is it?" I said.

"Someone who knows something about Buffy Summers, Mr. Spenser."

I didn't recognize the voice, so I stood to the side of the door and opened it up a crack. Two people were standing outside the door. The one who spoke was a skinny guy, probably in his mid twenties, just below medium height with thick, black, curly hair. He was wearing a black suit with a starched white shirt and a black tie. The other was a woman with light curly brown hair down below her shoulders, about the same age, conservatively clad in a black dress that went below her knees, with red shoes. They reminded me of a couple of kids I once protected while they were handing out campaign literature for Meade Alexander's failed Senate campaign.

Then the man put his hands out and shoved the door, harder than I ever would have guessed someone his size could. I was pushed and fell back across the bed. The man jumped on me.

"Not that I'm going to tell you about her," the man said as he straddled me. His breath smelled coppery, like blood.

Then his face changed. Ridges popped up on his forehead. His blue eyes turned yellow, and his upper incisors and particularly his upper canines lengthened.

"I'm just going to kill you," he said, his head dipping down towards my neck. As he dropped his head he growled. The growl didn't sound human at all.

_Jesus Christ, it's a vampire, _I thought. The guy was strong, actually stronger than I was. But he was also a lot lighter than I was, so I was able to throw him off me and stand up. The woman, whose face now also had ridges, fangs, and yellow eyes, grabbed me by the shirt and the leg and threw me to the far wall, by the bathroom. She scrambled towards me extremely fast, but I caught her with a left hook and knocked her down. The guy was back up and moving towards me, so I brought up my gun and shot him three times. He grunted and fell back on the bed. The woman was back on her feet. She wrenched the gun out of my hand and tossed it on the bed. She grabbed me by the throat with her right hand and lifted me off my feet while holding me against the wall.

_Thunk!_

The woman staggered forward. I saw the feathered shaft of an arrow projecting from her back. She let me go and I fell back to the floor, landing on my feet. She looked up. Her face, hair, skin, clothes, even the arrow all turned into an extremely fine grey powder, then the powder dissipated, leaving for the briefest of moments a skeleton also consisting of a slightly coarser grey powder, then that powder dissipated and fell to the floor as well. The guy I shot made his inhuman growl again, got up from the bed, and started towards me. Two other guys grabbed him. One of them was Xander Harris. The other was a really short guy with spiked red hair. The vampire shucked Xander off him, throwing him onto the bed. Then Rupert Giles was there putting the vampire in a reverse chin lock.

"Spenser!" Giles yelled. "Open the drapes! Now!"

I found the rope to the room drapes and pulled. Sunlight streamed into the room and onto the vampire.

"Oz! Let him go!" Giles yelled.

Giles and the short red headed kid, Oz, let the vampire go. The vampire's skin immediately turned red, started to blister, and sizzle. Then, the vampire erupted into flame. He turned around and tried to run out of the room, but Giles hit him in the face with a very nice, short right handed punch, knocking him back. The vampire then tried to run into the bathroom, but even as Giles started to yell, I stepped between him and the door and hit him with a similar, also very nice short left handed punch. The vampire rocked back, then suddenly the flames went out and there was just grey powder swirling in my room.

"Jesus Christ," I said.


	10. Chapter 10

"Oz", whose full name was Daniel Osborn, recommended that we leave before the cops came. So, about a minute after using sunlight to flash fry a vampire, I was sitting in the passenger seat of Giles' Citroen. The Citroen wheezed and rumbled and farted its way back to Sunnydale's east end and then Giles drove around to the west side of Sunnydale High School. There he parked by a side door, we all got out and Giles unlocked the side door and let us in. The library was about 100 feet down the hall to the left, and the door was unlocked. I was pretty much operating on autopilot at this point, partially because I couldn't believe what had happened but more because a lot of things about this case were starting to make a very, very weird sort of sense.

When I entered the library, two people were sitting at the meeting area. I recognized both of them. One was Willow Rosenberg, still in her overalls, yellow t-shirt and Keds. The other was a black man about my size wearing an expensive burgundy track suit with matching Nikes. His shaved head reflected the overhead lights. His presence in Giles' library was almost as big a surprise as being attacked by vampires in my hotel room.

"Hawk," I said.

Hawk looked up at me and smiled.

"Hi babe," he said.

"Hawk," I said. "Not that I'm not glad to see you, but what are you doing here?"

"Got Susan's message. I knew Sunnydale was a tougher town than you would be expecting, so I called my old friend Ripper to keep an eye out for you, and imagine my surprise when he say he already met you. Next thing I know, he starts asking questions about you, and I figure it'd be easier if I just went ahead and came out here."

While Hawk was speaking, Willow popped up to her feet and hugged and kissed Oz. Then she looked from Oz to Xander and grinned.

"Mr. Hawk was telling me about Giles back in the day," she said. "Did you know that Giles dyed his hair jet black, wore an earring, and had a ring through the _left _side of his nose?"

"All right Giles!" said Oz.

Xander made a show of staggering around. "My delicate world is crumbling. My school librarian was a punk rocker!"

He looked at Hawk.

"So did the G-man complement his look with tweed?"

"Nah," said Hawk. "He dressed in black. Tried to look like a total badass."

Giles had taken off his glasses and was polishing them diligently. He didn't look like a badass, he looked like a flustered English librarian.

"Was he a badass?" I asked Hawk.

"He was close enough," Hawk said. "We worked together a few times in New York and London back in 1972 and again in 1974."

"I'm impressed," I said, turning to Giles. "Hawk is very selective in his praise."

"Well," Giles said to everyone in the room. "I would point out that I wasn't even twenty yet."

Giles gestured for me to take a chair, which I did. Then he looked at me, then at everyone else at the room, then back at me.

"Hawk says that we can trust you." I realized that by saying "we", Giles was referring to the three kids in the room as well as himself, and that he was addressing them as well as me. "I learned long ago that I can trust Hawk's judgment, and as you say, he is very selective in his praise."

"So I guess that means you're going to be more forthcoming with me," I said.

Giles smiled his little smile, and the scary guy made a brief reappearance. "Yes, that's what it means."

"Oh boy," Willow said. "Giles is gonna give the speech. I love it when he gives the speech. He does it so well."

"I'm glad one of us does," Xander said. He patted Willow's leg absently as he spoke, earning a quick and suspicious glance from Oz that he didn't seem to notice.

"Before you start," I said to Giles. "I think I've already figured some things out, and I'd like to see how close to the mark I am."

Giles nodded. "Go ahead."

"Here's what I think," I said. "I think that Buffy is some sort of vampire fighter. She wasn't always a vampire fighter, but something happened to her no later than the beginning of her sophomore year at Hemery. She started fighting, and somehow killing, vampires. Her parents saw the changes in her and became concerned, but at the time at least had no idea what was going on. Then, vampires attacked her at the Hemery High Senior Dance. Some students and a faculty member got killed. Some vampires got killed too, and Buffy killed their leader. But the thing is, when vampires die, they turn to dust. So do their clothes, and anything else on their person or in their possession. As a result, when Buffy killed the lead vampire, he turned to dust, the sword he was using turned to dust, and any evidence of a vampire attack turned to dust with him, except for the dead kids. Any vampire who was not killed fled the scene. As a result, the cops couldn't come up with evidence to document the attack, but they also couldn't come up with evidence that Buffy took a primary role in the violence, particularly when the witnesses changed their story. So Buffy was released but not really cleared. Buffy was expelled from Hemery, Hank Summers ran for the hills, and Joyce came to Sunnydale for a fresh start for her and her family.

"At some point, Buffy runs across more vampires here and starts to fight them. Eventually, something big happens. Giles has his fingers broken, Xander has his arm broken, and a kid named Kendra gets killed, all by vampires. Buffy has an argument with her mother, who wants her to stay, but she leaves to kill all or some of the vampires. Unfortunately, the situation is now very similar to the one in Hemery, not enough evidence to arrest her, but not enough evidence to clear her either. She's expelled, and perhaps fed up with this situation, she runs away."

I finished. No one said anything. Everyone except for Hawk and Oz looked a little stunned. Oz, so far as I could tell, was unflappable.

Finally, Oz said, "Wow, really good guess."

Hawk looked at Giles and grinned. "Told you."

"Yes, that was …truly remarkable." Giles stared at me. "How long ago did you have all this worked out?"

"Actually, very little about this whole case made sense until the vampire attack. It was as I was riding in your car that things started to fall together."

"Remarkable," said Giles.

"Well, I tend to hold various bits of information in my head until I can find a way to put them together."

"Well," said Giles. "I certainly have less to explain than I thought I did. So now let me fill in the gaps.

"Contrary to popular mythology, the Earth did not start out as a paradise…"


	11. Chapter 11

I found out from Giles, with occasional contributions from Willow, Xander, and even Hawk, that the technical term for what Buffy Summers was was not "vampire fighter", but "vampire slayer". Giles told me that Buffy was even faster and stronger than the vampires she hunted. He said something about a prophecy that really didn't make much sense to me. I also found out that not only were vampires real, but other assorted demons and creatures of the night were real also. Oz, in his only contribution to the discussion, held up his hand and pointed to himself and said "werewolf".

Giles was a watcher. There were different kinds of watchers. Some kept track of the movements of prominent vampires and other demons. Others were assigned slayers or potentials, young girls who might become slayers.

Finally, Giles told me about Sunnydale itself. Apparently, Sunnydale was home to the Hellmouth, a subterranean dimensional gate to, well, Hell. Worse, apparently it was centered under the very high school library we were sitting in.

"Anyone else find the idea of young teenage girls suddenly having to be responsible for protecting the world from vampires and demons to be extremely disturbing?" I asked.

"Yes," said Giles. He looked at me, and several emotions seemed to cross his face. I suspected he cared for Buffy more deeply than even he realized.

Hawk, I learned, had come across vampires and a slayer while doing his usual line of work in New York. He was briefly contracted to work for the Watcher's Council, and they sent Giles, who Hawk knew by the name of "Ripper", to work with him.

"At the time, old Ripper was working his way through Oxford as a policy implementation specialist for the Watcher's Council," Hawk said. "Sorta like what I do freelance."

I could tell none of the kids understood exactly what Hawk meant when he said "policy implementation specialist". That was probably a good thing. It did explain why Giles could look so scary when he wanted to.


	12. Chapter 12

After Giles gave me his background information speech, it became time to talk about Buffy's current situation, and what happened.

"So what happened before Buffy ran away?" I asked.

Giles cleared his throat.

"To tell this story, I need to start with Angel," he said.

"Angel?"

"Buffy's ex boyfriend."

Giles paused, then took a deep breath. Xander started to fidget.

"When a vampire changes a victim into a vampire, it first kills the person. This is a very important concept. The person dies just as certainly as if she got a bullet to the head. The victim's soul departs. The vampire drains the victim of most of her blood, then has the dying victim drink its own blood, essentially replacing the victim's blood with its own. Vampire blood is toxic in large doses, hallucinogenic in small doses.

"The vampire is in essence a blood demon. The demon resides in the blood, the blood is essentially a living thing that mystically recycles through the veins of the corpse it inhabits. There are other aspects of vampire biology that I won't get into now, but the important thing is that a vampire is not the person it was. It is a demon wearing the corpse of the person its sire murdered.

"A vampire generally hates human beings, and in particular is inclined to torture and kill the people closest to the victim it inhabits. Mr. Spenser, if you were to become a vampire, the vampire would have all your memories, all your mannerisms, but would not be you. It would find its way back to Boston and…"

Giles looked at Hawk.

"Susan?" Giles said.

Hawk nodded.

"It would find its way to Boston and target Susan and anyone else loved by Spenser the man."

"OK," I said. "I get all that."

"Good," Giles said. "Now, imagine something happens, and the soul of the man you were is forced into the vampire that your body became. Suddenly, you have essentially come back to life only to find yourself inhabiting the body of the thing that killed everyone you loved. The thing has done other horrible and reprehensible things that make you absolutely sick. The vampire is still inside you, raging to get out but it can't. You are now in control of the vampire's body. What do you do?"

"Probably kill myself," I said.

"Ah, that makes sense at first glance. But through the vampire's own memories you remember encounters with other creatures as horrible as yourself. If you kill yourself, you allow the evil to perpetuate through them."

"OK, that makes sense," I said. "I try to stop others from being victimized by the thing I was, and the other things out there. I fight. I've got a vampire's strength, so I try to use it against them."

"Precisely," Giles said. "Now here's where it gets complicated.

"There was once a young man in Ireland, no more than 21 at the time. He was attacked, killed, and turned by a vampire. The vampire he became went by the name of Angelus, and even by vampire standards he was a cruel and monstrous creature. Nearly a century and a half after his creation, in 1898, Angelus tortured and killed a prominent Romany, or gypsy, princess in Romania. The girl's tribe, however, had access to a curse. The curse returned the soul of the man Angelus was back into the vampire. Angelus was replaced by Angel, who was absolutely horrified by the things Angelus did. After some years of disorientation and depression, Angel tried to protect people from vampires and other demons. Eventually, he found himself in Sunnydale.

"Angel appears as a handsome young man, somewhat dark and mysterious. He starts to help a girl named Buffy Summers, who is engaged in the same fight he is. She is, for all her abilities, a sixteen year old girl. She finds herself attracted to him."

At this, Xander got up and excused himself, saying he needed to go to the bathroom.

Willow looked at me after he left. "Xander didn't like Angel much."

Giles coughed and then continued.

"Angel, for his part, probably tried to resist his own attraction to Buffy. She was, after all, a sixteen year old girl. But she was also isolated by the same sort of power and responsibilities that he had. They had a unique connection that I doubt anyone else, and I include myself, can ever really understand. Against all odds and all common sense, they fell in love.

"Unfortunately, Angel's curse, really a curse on the vampire Angelus, had an Achilles heel. If the man within should forget even for a second, by way of complete and total happiness, his responsibility to hold the vampire within him in check, he dies again. His soul is ejected, and the vampire is again in charge."

Giles looked at me. It took a second for what Giles said to completely sink in. I felt a tightness in my chest. If I was less manly, I think I might have been in tears. Willow already was. Even Hawk's face was grim.

Finally, I said, "Buffy and Angel made love."

"On her seventeenth birthday," Giles said.

No one said anything for a few seconds, then Giles continued.

"Literally overnight, the great love of Buffy Summers' life was transformed into a mortal enemy, one determined to torture and kill everyone she ever loved. Worse, two members of Angelus' old circle, powerful vampires named Spike and Drusilla, were already in town."

At the mention of Spike's name I saw Hawk flinch, very briefly.

Giles continued. "It was an extremely stressful time. I myself lost someone very close to me. Angelus eventually found an alternative way to open a gateway to Hell, by awakening a dormant demon named Acathla. The other slayer, Kendra, was sent from Jamaica to assist in stopping Angelus and his allies."

Hawk interrupted.

"Another slayer?" he said. "How is _that_ possible?"

"Last year," Giles said. "Buffy was briefly rendered clinically dead by the vampire known as the Master. Xander used CPR to revive her, but she was gone long enough to activate the next slayer."

"OK," Hawk said. I was really curious about Hawk's apparent knowledge of and interest in slayers. I knew there were things he never shared with me, but in all my time with him I never had any hint of vampires and slayers in his past.

Giles continued.

"Unfortunately, Drusilla killed Kendra almost immediately after her arrival, injured Willow and Xander, and kidnapped me. Angelus didn't know how to wake Acathla, you see, and I did. I was brought to Angelus, and he tortured me. Spike, who was jealous of Drusilla's relationship with Angelus, sought out Buffy and made an alliance with her. Together, Spike and Buffy attacked Angelus, Drusilla, and the other vampires. Xander rescued me, but not before Drusilla duped me into revealing to Angelus the correct procedure for waking Acathla."

Giles stopped.

"And then what happened?" I asked after a few seconds had passed.

"I don't know," Giles said. "I assume Buffy and Angelus fought. Since the world still exists, I assume she killed Angelus."

"So, she killed the love of her life," I said.

"Maybe not though," Willow said.

I looked at Willow.

"Why not?"

"Because Miss Calendar found the spell to restore Angel's soul, and the night Buffy fought him, I cast it."

I looked at all of them. Xander walked into the room after Giles finished his story.

"Wow," I said.

Giles nodded.

"I assume that you will want to talk to all of the principles in this case," he said to me. "I will suggest to all of them that they tell you everything they remember. I will rely on your discretion."

"OK," I said. "There is one person I would like to talk to about all this."

Hawk nodded at Giles.

"Who would this person be?" Giles asked me.

"Doctor Susan Silverman," I said. "She's my girlfriend, but she is also a very good psychologist. I think she will be able to help."


	13. Chapter 13

I stayed at Giles' place that night. So did Hawk. The next morning, I went back to the Sunnydale High School Library to talk to Willow, Xander, and Oz.

Giles worked in his office and left the main meeting area to me. I chose to talk to Buffy's three friends separately to get their independent perspectives on what happened the night before Buffy left home. I started with Willow. She was wearing blue jeans, orange tennis shoes, and a brown shirt with "Techno-Geek" stenciled across the front in green letters.

"OK," I said. "Yesterday you said you found a spell to restore Angel's soul?"

"Yeah. I was helping Buffy study for her Chem Final in Miss Calendar's room," she said.

I was completely confused already.

"Who is Miss Calendar? You mentioned her before."

"She was our computer teacher. She was really good. She was also Giles' girlfriend and oh yeah, she was also a gypsy."

"So you were helping Buffy study chemistry during your computer class?"

"Not exactly. Angelus killed Miss Calendar after she used a computer program to reconstruct the curse. Principal Snyder couldn't find a new teacher to take her place so late in the school year, so he kinda had me take over the class and let me work at my own pace in my other classes. So I spent most of my time at school this last semester in Miss Calendar's classroom."

"Well, Snyder said that you were an outstanding student," I said.

"Really?" she said, her face erupting into a big and infectious smile. "'Cause, you know, I really didn't get the feeling he liked me so much."

"I haven't really gotten the feeling Snyder likes anyone much," I said. "So how did helping Buffy study for her Chem Final result in you finding the spell to restore Angel's soul?"

The questions I was asking made me feel like I was Alice and had gone down the rabbit hole.

"Miss Calendar backed up the reconstruction of the curse on floppy disk, and it fell in between her desk and her file cabinet. Buffy found it when she dropped her pencil in the same place. I put the disk in the computer, and there it was."

"So then what happened?"

"Buffy asked me to try to restore Angel's soul. Even with Kendra here, the odds were against us, particularly with Angelus, Drusilla, and Spike all together and everything, and then they found Acathla and were going to wake him up and suck the world into Hell, big yuck, then Angel, I mean Angelus, sent this female vampire to our English Final and she took off her cloak and burned to death but before she did she said that Buffy had to meet Angelus in the graveyard at sundown or more would die."

"OK, I think I got that, sort of."

"So Buffy went out to meet Angelus, and Xander, Cordelia, Giles and I stayed here in the library and set out to redo the Gypsy curse and restore Angel's soul. Kendra was also here to guard us. We started the spell, but Angelus sent Drusilla and a whole bunch of other vampires to stop us and kidnap Giles, and one of them pushed a bookcase on me and I was knocked out."

"Where did you wake up?"

"In the hospital, I was unconscious for about four hours."

"And after you woke up, you decided to try again to restore Angel's soul."

"Yeah, from the hospital bed. Buffy was going to try to stop Angelus from waking Acathla. I had Oz and Cordelia help me, and I sent Xander to tell Buffy that I was going to try again, 'cause, you know, good Angel not so inclined to wake up a Hell sucking demon. This time we got through the spell. I don't remember the end of it, but I felt something go through me, and when I came back to myself, the Orb was gone."

"The Orb?"

"The Orb of Thessela. It's like a conduit through which Angel's soul traveled to him. It looks like a glass crystal ball, but when the soul enters it, and then travels to its host, it takes the Orb with it, and it vanishes."

I was pretty sure I wasn't going to really understand most of what Willow was telling me, so I tried to distill it to elements that I could understand.

"So because the Orb vanished, you're certain the spell worked."

"Yeah, pretty much. I just don't know if it was in time."


	14. Chapter 14

Xander wore pretty much the same outfit he had on the day before, except I think he was wearing a different t-shirt.

"So when Buffy went off to fight Angelus in the grave yard, where were you?"

"I stayed in the library to help Willow and the others."

"To restore Angel's soul?"

"No, more to help Kendra guard them, I guess. Giles was helping Willow with the heavy lifting, spell casting wise. Even Cordy was waving some kind of incense around."

There was an angry undercurrent to Xander's voice.

"So what happened while you were on guard?"

"OK, I wasn't really on guard. I was standing around in the library holding a stake because I didn't have anything better to do. Kendra was the one actually standing guard."

"So what happened while you were standing around?"

"We were attacked by four vampires plus Drusilla. I tried to fight them but I was pretty much worthless. I mean, I landed some punches but you know from experience how well _that_ works, and I _know _you hit a lot harder and better than I do. One of the vampires broke my arm, I managed to hit him and even shove him into another vamp so that Cordy could get away. But they'd already shoved a bookcase onto Willow and knocked out Giles, who was the only real threat to them other than Kendra. Then one of the vamps punched me and knocked me down but not out. Not that it mattered, I was rendered completely useless anyway. I could just watch like a worthless dork as the other vamps attacked Kendra. She might have beaten them, but then Drusilla came in and waved them off."

Xander shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut.

"Drusilla and Kendra fought, if you can call it that. Drusilla played with her like a cat with a mouse before slicing open her throat. Then Drusilla and the other vamps picked up Giles and booked. Buffy ran in about a minute later, but it was too late. Kendra was dead. When the cops came in, they pulled their guns on Buffy and I still just watched. I tried to say something, but nothing came out."

"Too weak?"

"Yeah, that punch may have done more than just knock me down. And my arm…"

Xander's voice seemed to drip with self disgust.

"Xander, that happens. A broken arm and a good punch will render most people temporarily helpless. There's no shame in it."

"That's what Giles says, but if I had been able to say something then, maybe Buffy would still be here."

"Do you know why people dismiss Monday morning quarterbacking?"

"Because it doesn't matter?"

"That's right," I said. "Tell me about meeting Buffy in the hospital."

"There isn't much to tell. Buffy came, Willow was unconscious and the cops were at the hospital in force looking for her. She couldn't stay. She told me to stay with Willow while she tried to stop Angel from waking Acathla."

"But you saw Buffy again."

"Yeah," Xander said. "Willow woke up and decided to try the spell again. When the Willster really gets determined to do something, there's no stopping her. Will sent me to tell Buffy what she was up to. I got there and Buffy told me to get Giles out of the house and stay away from the fighting. Buffy went in and started killing vampires, and Spike whaled on Angel with a crowbar. I got Giles and we left.

"I have no idea what happened after that."


	15. Chapter 15

Oz didn't really have much to add, and what he did add was said in monosyllables. But he did confirm that the Orb vanished when Willow completed her spell in the hospital.

After eating lunch, I visited with Joyce and Dawn Summers in their home. They lived in a nice looking white house on Revello Drive, about 14 blocks east and north of downtown Sunnydale. Joyce smiled as she opened the door. She looked nice in blue jeans, open toed sandals, and a tan short sleeved polo shirt. Running down the stairs behind her was a young girl with long brown hair.

"Ooooooo!" she said. "Mom, is that the private eye?"

"Yes, Dawn," Joyce said. "This is Mr. Spenser."

Joyce directed me to a chair in the living room. She and Dawn sat next to each other on the couch at a right angle to me. The couch was backed up to the picture window, but the house faced to the south, so the summer sun did not shine on them. Joyce served us some raspberry sun tea. It was very good.

"I know this is difficult, Joyce," I said. "But tell me what happened the night before Buffy ran away."

Joyce turned to Dawn. "Maybe you should go to Janice's for a little bit."

"But I wanna talk to Mr. Spenser, Mom," Dawn said.

"You will sweetheart," Joyce said. "But I'm going to mention things to Mr. Spenser that I don't want you to hear."

"But, Mom…"

Joyce looked at Dawn and didn't say anything. Eventually, Dawn got up and flounced out of the room, dramatically opening and then slamming the front door. She walked down the sidewalk and across the street. Joyce and I both watched her until she knocked on the door of a house across the street, then went in.

"You feel comfortable letting her go out by herself in Sunnydale?"

"During the day, it's usually OK," Joyce said. "But only across the street to go to Janice's. A few vampires have human agents, and some demons aren't bothered by sunlight."

"How long have you known Buffy was a slayer?"

"Probably longer than I'd like to admit. For example, when Buffy was released from the psychiatric treatment facility in LA, the facility's director had vanished and a woman on the staff had taken his place. Less than one month later, the place closed when it was revealed that some of the homeless girls placed there had vanished and were never seen again. There was a manhunt for the original director, who was never found. Later, Buffy told me that the original director of the place was a demon, and that she had killed him."

"Jesus Christ," I said. "Excuse my language."

Joyce chuckled.

"Quite all right, I've found the occasion to use the expression myself a few times over the past year."

"So when did you officially find out that Buffy was a vampire slayer?"

"One of Buffy's enemies, Darla, who looked to be about 18 but was really over 300 years old, came to the house claiming to be Buffy's history tutor. I let her in, and she attacked me. Darla was out to kill me and Dawn and frame Angel for our deaths. Dawn though, saved my life by sticking a crucifix in Darla's face."

"Those work?"

"Yes," Joyce said. "Any symbol enough people sincerely believe to be sacred can harm a vampire. A crucifix, a cross, a Star of David, apparently even an upright pentagram can be effective.

"At any rate, Angel then came and drove Darla off. When Buffy came home from her evening slaying, she had a lot of explaining to do."

Joyce paused.

"And I had a lot of apologizing to do."

I nodded.

"So what happened the night before Buffy ran away?"

"Mr. Spenser, have you by any chance met Detective Stein?" Joyce asked.

"Yes, a highly peculiar man given to histrionic counting," I said.

Joyce looked at me.

"When I mentioned your daughter's name, Detective Stein started to count. I think he was giving me until the count of ten to get out of Dodge."

"I see," Joyce said. "Well I find him to be, for a policeman, an extremely vile and frankly somewhat stupid man. He had come to the house before to ask about Ted."

"Ted?"

"Another man who turned out to be a monster. Buffy killed him twice, they arrested her for it the first time. It's really weird, Mr. Spenser. You will find the Sunnydale Police Department doesn't tend to follow up on anything."

"Anyway, Stein returned to your house during the night in question."

"Yes, he was asking me about the dead girl in the Sunnydale library. I was terrified he was talking about Willow, and then he really gave me a start when he called Willow 'the other victim'. Thank God she turned out to be OK. Anyway, I knew that Buffy didn't kill this girl, but a vampire probably had. But, I couldn't tell Detective Stein that, and I didn't know what had happened to Buffy. I was worried, scared and frazzled. When Detective Stein finally left me alone, I took Dawn over to Janice's and then went out and looked for Buffy, probably not a smart thing for me to do at night, but I'm still her mother for God's sake. When I came home, there she was in the driveway with Spike, a vampire who had been her mortal enemy. In fact, he almost killed her the first time they fought. I got out of the car and another vampire attacked me, and Buffy and Spike teamed up to dust him. Buffy then invited Spike into our house. Our house! Inside, they made plans to rescue Giles, who Angelus had prisoner and was torturing. The deal was, as long as Giles could be saved, Buffy wouldn't kill Drusilla."

"Wasn't Drusilla the vampire who killed Kendra?"

"Yes, but according to Mr. Giles, while Drusilla was more than a match for Kendra, she wasn't a match for Buffy, and Spike knew it."

"So Spike cared about Drusilla."

"Yes."

"That doesn't seem to gibe with what I've been told about vampires. I didn't think they could care about anyone."

"Yes, that is odd. But Spike's concern for Drusilla seemed to be genuine. At any rate, Buffy and Spike decided to assist each other against Angel. Spike agreed to take Drusilla and get her out of town, and Buffy agreed not to kill Drusilla as long as Giles was OK. Until then, Spike and Buffy would assist each other in fighting Angelus."

"And what was your response to that?"

"Are you kidding? I went berserk. The first time Spike and Buffy fought, he would have killed her if I hadn't hit him in the head with an ax. It was the only time I ever helped Buffy when she was slaying."

"Go Joyce."

"Mr. Spenser, I can not tell you how much I hate this. Every night since I've found out my daughter's the slayer, I have had to worry if she would come home alive. I can't stop her from doing what she does. In fact, I think there is something in the nature of the slayer where she can't stop _herself_. So I have a daughter _in high school_ who goes out every night to fight a war. A war, Mr. Spenser. A goddamn war!"

Joyce started to tear up and sniffle a little. I waited. She didn't break down completely. She hid her face, pursed her lips, then got up and got a Kleenex. Then she sat down and took a deep breath. Then another. Then she looked up at me.

"Every night was horrible, but that night it was just too much. Buffy was alone, going up against at least half a dozen vampires including the one that used to be the man she loved, with an ally she could not trust. Usually Giles was the one to back her up, and he's capable. In fact, I think you would be surprised at how capable Willow and Xander are in that situation. I tried to forbid her from going, but of course that was impossible. Angelus was going to destroy the world. Quite literally, my daughter is the only reason why we are able to sit here and have this conversation today."

I took a deep breath myself.

"What did you think of the relationship between Buffy and Angel?"

"Well I hated it. My daughter was dating an older man, a man older by over two hundred years."

Joyce stopped and looked at the table.

"But I have to admit, Angel was always good to her. He saved her several times, as she saved him. And he was always kind and considerate to Dawn and to me."

"At least until he became Angelus."

Joyce looked up at me.

"Angel didn't become Angelus, Mr. Spenser. Angel died, and Angelus took his place. He nearly killed Dawn before we found that out. It was a mistake on his part, I think, going after Dawn so soon. It was easier for Buffy to go after him after that."

I closed my notepad and stood up.

"Mrs. Summers," I said. "I cannot tell you what a pleasure it has been to talk with you. You are one hell of a woman. Buffy is damn lucky to have you as her mother."

I extended her my hand. Joyce took it.

"Thank you, Mr. Spenser."


	16. Chapter 16

Joyce called Janice's mother and told her to send Dawn home. Dawn and I sat in the living room, and she insisted that Joyce leave, since she had to leave when I talked with Joyce. Fair was fair. Joyce went into the kitchen, and Dawn and I talked.

"How are you doing?" I asked.

"OK."

"How's your Mom doing?"

"She cries a lot, when she doesn't think I'm around. But I hear her sometimes."

I nodded.

"What happened the night before Buffy ran away?"

"I don't know," Dawn said. "As soon as that Stein asshole left…" Dawn covered her mouth and looked in the direction of the kitchen. "Don't tell Mom I said asshole, OK?"

"Sure. And for your information I share your assessment of Detective Stein."

"Thanks!" Dawn smiled at me conspiratorially. "Anyway, as soon as Stein left Mom called Janice's mom and told her she needed to look for my sister, and could I stay with Janice. Then she told me to stay in the house with Janice, and make sure Janice and her family stayed in the house as well. Like I needed to be reminded of that! The last thing I wanted to run into was Angelus again."

"So you didn't see anything that night."

"No, but the next morning I got up and went home early. I was worried, you know, about Buffy, about my Mom. Anyway, I'm walking home and I see Buffy climbing out of the window to her room. She's got her overnight bag, the one she used to take when we would visit Dad. She looks at me, waves, jumps to the ground, then turns around and runs away. I called out to her, but she didn't answer. I then went into the house and found Mom crying. She had a note from Buffy. When I went into my room I found _my_ note from Buffy."

"Could I see your note?"

"Sure."

Dawn looked at me.

"Mr. Spenser? Do you think that you can find Buffy? Maybe get her back for my birthday? It's in three days."

Spenser. Toughest detective in Boston. Way too tough to admit to the big lump a 12 year old girl put in his throat.

………………………………………………………………………………………………

I sat in the Summers' living room and read the notes Buffy wrote to Joyce and Dawn, who were both sitting on the couch watching me read.

DEAR MOM,

I'M SORRY. I KNOW I WASN'T SUPPOSED TO COME BACK, BUT I HAD TO GET SOME OF MY CLOTHES, MAKEUP, AND OTHER THINGS. I'M OK. I WON. ANGELUS IS GONE, AND SPIKE AND DRUSILLA HAVE LEFT TOWN.

I AM SO SORRY FOR WHAT I HAVE PUT YOU THROUGH. I KNOW HAVING A SLAYER FOR A DAUGHTER HAS TO BE REALLY HARD. I KNOW ME GOING OUT AND FIGHTING FOR MY LIFE EVERY NIGHT IS REALLY HARD. AND I KNOW THAT THE IDEA OF ME GOING OUT AND KILLING THINGS THAT LOOK SO HUMAN HAS TO HARD FOR YOU TOO. IT IS FOR ME. IT'S HARD FOR ME TO BE A SLAYER. BUT IT'S IMPOSSIBLE FOR ME TO BE A DAUGHTER AND A STUDENT AND A SLAYER ALL AT THE SAME TIME. I KNOW THAT NOW.

I WISH I COULD MAKE IT ALL STOP. I WISH WE COULD BE A FAMILY AGAIN.

LOVE,

BUFFY

P.S.:

I DIDN'T MEAN IT ABOUT THE DRINK.

DEAR DAWN,

THE TWENTY DOLLAR BILL ATTACHED IS FOR YOUR BIRTHDAY. I'M SORRY I WON'T BE HERE FOR IT. I HAVE TO GO. TELL WILLOW, XANDER, GILES AND THE REST OF THE SCOOBIES THAT I WILL MISS THEM. EVEN CORDELIA.

LOVE,

BUFFY

I looked up at Dawn.

"Scoobies?"

"From Scooby Doo," Dawn said. "It's what Buffy and her friends call themselves, particularly Willow and Xander."

"Except that old man Wilkins really is a monster," I said.

"Something like that," Joyce said.

"Sorry about the drink?" I said.

"I was drinking bourbon on ice when I was arguing with Buffy," Joyce said. "When the discussion got particularly heated, she suggested that I just 'have another drink'."

"Patronizing," I said.

"It was, but it clearly bothered her in retrospect."

"Insightful."

"I'm sorry?"

"It was insightful of her to recognize the thing she said that probably hurt you the most."

"I suppose it was."


	17. Chapter 17

Joyce and Dawn let me take their notes to Kinko's to make copies. I thought I'd read them to Susan. Then, I returned their notes and went back to Rupert Giles' place.

"You can probably go back to your hotel to collect your rental car and your things and check out," Giles said.

"I go back, the manager calls the cops," I said. "Shots were fired in my room."

"And the bullets turned to dust with the vampire. Mr. Spenser, the Sunnydale Police Department has the attention span of a hamster. They didn't find you, and they've moved on. As for the hotel management, they will simply be relieved that you are alive to pay the bill."

"Even the most inept police department is going to follow up on…"

"It's not entirely a matter of eptitude, Mr. Spenser. The Watcher's Council has discovered evidence of an extremely powerful but subtle spell within the borders of Sunnydale. Events that would…that would have life changing significance elsewhere do not here. Many people here have experienced odd and alarming events, but if the events do not result in significant personal tragedies, the next day they will have the emotional significance of a spilled cup of coffee."

"So the SPD will not be looking for me because…."

"When they couldn't find you last night, they assumed you were another unsolved disappearance of the sort that is routine here. When you pop back up, they'll shrug their shoulders and think, _lucky him_."

Giles drove me back to the hotel. Hawk rode in the front seat with him, and together they talked about someone named "Nikki".

"Who's Nikki?" I asked.

"Nikki was the slayer back then," Giles said. "Hawk and I worked with her."

Neither Hawk nor Giles said anything more about Nikki the vampire slayer, and the conversation turned to things British. Mainly, we talked about dark beer and darts.

At the hotel, I had to pay a couple of extra hundred dollars for the burns on the carpet, but nobody at the desk asked me what happened. Nobody called the cops. No sirens. No one met us in the parking lot to ask me what happened.

"This place is weird," I said.

"Indeed," said Giles.


	18. Chapter 18

In the middle of the afternoon, from Giles place, I called Susan collect. As I expected, she was seeing patients, so we set a time when we could talk at length.

"How's it going honeybuns?" Susan said when I called her again.

"Well, I found out vampires are real."

"Oh, that."

"I'm serious."

"I know," Susan said. "I know about vampires."

"Jesus Christ," I said. "First Hawk, now you?"

"How does Hawk know about vampires?"

"Hawk and Rupert Giles were killing vampires together in New York in the early '70's."

"Really?" Susan said. "Well, that explains why Hawk told me he was going to Sunnydale as soon as I told him where you were."

"Now do you mind explaining how _you_ know about vampires?" I asked.

"I really can't say much, except to remind you that a significant portion of my clientele is in law enforcement. Other than that, in addition to my usual doctor patient confidentiality, I had to be approved by certain governmental agencies to see some of my current patients."

"So that's all you can tell me."

"That's all I can tell you."

I then told Susan everything I knew. I read her Buffy's notes. It took about an hour and a half. At first, she just listened, but then she started to ask questions here and there.

"Good lord," she said when I finished.

I waited.

"I think the best thing to do is for me to take an hour to try to digest this, then I'll call you back and you can tell me all this again. Then, we can figure out what you need from me."

"OK," I said. I gave Susan Giles' number, then hung up.

Two hours later, she called me again. I repeated to her everything I knew. This time, she interrupted more to ask questions.

When we finished, I said, "What do you think?"

"First of all, I am relieved that you are all right. If it hadn't been for Giles and those two boys…"

"I'd be dead, or dead and a monster."

"So what are your theories about Buffy running away?"

"Well, I can think of several possibilities," I said.

"One, Buffy killed Angelus and was upset about having to kill him. Then on top of that, there was her conversation with her mother, and the death of Kendra, so she just bugged out."

"And two?"

"Two, Willow cured Angelus. Angel and Buffy saved the day, and they ran off together to start a new life. That's Willow's theory."

"Highly unlikely," Susan said.

"I agree."

"And three?"

"OK, really I'm just thinking of two possibilities."

Susan paused. I could feel her intelligence through the connection between us, though we were separated by three thousand miles.

"The notes," Susan said.

"What about them?"

"No mention of running away, or even leaving home, just of leaving people. No assurances that she will be fine, just that she _is _fine."

"And that's significant."

"It could be. The other thing I'm thinking about is Xander's story."

"What about it?"

"Did Xander mention relaying Willow's message at all?"

"No, he said he was told to give Buffy the message, but he didn't say that he actually relayed it."

"If Willow's message had been relayed, wouldn't it have had a significant effect on Buffy? Might she have considered a different strategy under the circumstances?"

"Yeah," I said. "I think she would have."

"Makes me wonder just what message, if any, Xander actually gave Buffy."

"I'll ask. Now, what about the letters?"

"Well, Buffy left home, and left notes to her mother and sister to say goodbye. And saying goodbye appears to have been the entire purpose behind writing the notes. Nothing to the effect of, 'I'm leaving home and never coming back'. No 'don't try to look for me because you won't find me'. No 'don't worry about me I'll be fine'. Those sentiments tend to be common in notes from runaways."

"Translation: Buffy wasn't a runaway. She assumed that her mother and sister would know where to find her."

I felt sick to my stomach.

"You're right," I said. "Methinks I smell a rat."

"It's something to look into," Susan said.

"I should have seen it."

"Well, sweetie, that's why you have me."

"It is."


	19. Chapter 19

I went to the Harris house, which was two doors down from the Rosenberg house. The houses were essentially of identical design, but the Harris house was not nearly so well maintained.

The door was opened by a man who smelled strongly of beer, cigarettes, and Fritos. Just under middle height, with a substantial beer belly, he was dressed in a white t-shirt and dirty grey slacks. He was barefoot, and his hair was mussed even though it smelled of hair gell, and dirty enough I that couldn't be sure of the color. He looked like Xander Harris might have looked if he was thirty years older, showered once a week, and spent all the time he wasn't in the shower on the couch. Behind him, there was a reclining/rocking chair still rocking, and there were Fritos on it, and several beer cans. There were also Frito crumbs on his shirt, but I didn't see any mushrooms growing on him. From the back of the house, I smelled bacon and eggs cooking, even though it was seven o'clock in the evening.

"Are you Mr. Harris?"

"Who wants to know?"

"I do."

"Huh?"

"No, that's not right. You're supposed to say 'and who the hell are you?'"

"Who the hell cares? You sellin' somethin'? 'Cause I ain't buyin' nothin'."

"No, I'm just canvassing the neighborhood counting Frito crumbs on T-shirts. So far, you win. You have 24."

He started to close the door. I blocked it with my foot. He looked at me, and at my foot, then turned around and started to go back into the house. Xander came out of the back into the living room wearing an apron.

"Dad, dinner's ready." He looked past his dad and saw me. "And Mr. Spenser, what are you doing here?"

"I came up with another question to ask you."

"Dad, your dinner's in the kitchen. I need to talk with this guy." Xander took off his apron.

"Where're you goin'?" The elder Harris jerked his head towards me. "He a cop?"

"Yeah Dad, he's a police officer. He's taking me away 'cause I stole a missile launcher from Fort Wilkins."

"Well, I ain't payin' your bail if he arrests you." With that, the elder Harris left us.

Xander and I walked to the sidewalk.

"Heard you makin' fun of my Dad," Xander said.

I felt bad, particularly in light of what I was going to ask him.

"Shit. I'm sorry," I said. "I sometimes have a reputation for going into smartass mode too easily."

"Hey, no problem," Xander said. "I'm just jealous because I can't make fun of him to his face without getting the shit smacked out of me. Besides which, he was giving you such good setup lines."

"He hit you a lot?"

"Not as much as he used to," Xander said. "Just don't offer to have the 'lay off Xander' talk with him. Buffy's already made that offer."

"Maybe I'd be less embarrassing."

"Yeah, but 'less embarrassing' is still embarrassing."

We walked in silence around the first corner of the block.

"So what did you want to ask me?" Xander said.

"When you talked with Buffy at the hospital, she told you to stay put, which you were going to do."

"Right."

"Then Willow tells you she's going to retry the spell to restore Angel's soul, and she asks you to find Buffy and tell her what she's doing. You go and find Buffy, and she enlists your help to rescue Giles."

"Yeah," Xander said. He made the "yeah" into two syllables, "yea" and "uh".

"Only one thing is bothering me. What was the _actual_ message you relayed to Buffy, if you gave her any at all?"

Xander looked at me as if I had just threatened to shoot him.

"God, I suck," he said. I could barely hear what he said next. "I told Buffy that Willow said…to kick his ass."

"That doesn't sound like Willow," I said.

"Usually no, although there are times that the Willster will surprise you. Like when you tell her about what I really said. She may look and act really sweet, but she can really hold a grudge. She finds out what I really said, I can pretty much guarantee she won't speak to me….as in ever again."

"I have no intention of saying anything to Willow," I said. "Why did you decide not to give Buffy Willow's actual message?"

Xander ducked his head and shook it. "I dunno. Jealous I guess."

"Of Angel?"

"Of Angel. Of Buffy. I mean, I got a great girlfriend now, and I'm not really still hoping for something with Buffy."

"But you did."

"Ohhhhhh yeah. Anyway, it's more the fact, I think, that Buffy chose a two hundred and fifty year old _vampire _over me that…that got under my skin. And the idea of Buffy going back to Angel after the things he did…."

"So you were being petty."

"The pettiest. Spenser, I know you think I am a complete asshole, and you're right. What I did was horrible."

"Maybe not," I said. "What was the reason for you going to meet Buffy?"

"Well, Willow sent me. I told you that."

"So that you could tell her about the plan to restore Angel's soul."

"Well…that was the plan anyway."

"Would you have run all that way, from the hospital to the outskirts of town, just to deliver a lame lie?"

"No," Xander said. "I was going to tell her…Buffy…exactly what Willow told me to tell her. But when I saw her…"

"When you saw her?"

"I was so upset about the idea of Angel getting off the hook for everything he did that I just…."

"Xander, were you upset about the idea of Angel 'getting off the hook' before you saw Buffy?"

"Well yeah."

"So again, what changed? It wasn't your animosity towards Angel. That was already there."

Xander closed his eyes. "I saw her…Buffy….walking alone, carrying a sword. She was going up against God knew how many vampires, including three really powerful ones, but she looked like…like she was ready, ready to go in and win. I've seen her look determined before, but I never saw her look like that."

"So why didn't you tell Buffy Willow's real message?"

"Because….because….I think because I thought she would lose her edge if I did." Xander looked at me. "Hey, do you think maybe I did the right thing after all, maybe even for the right reasons?"

"I don't know about the reasons, but for what it's worth, I think you _did _do the right thing," I said. "I think if you had relayed Willow's actual message, Buffy probably would have been killed. Her attention would have been divided between winning the fight and keeping Angel alive long enough for Willow's spell to work. The odds were already long enough without dividing her attention."

"Wow," said Xander.

"However, I also think you should tell Willow what you did," I said.

"And get on Willow's bad side for life?" Xander said. "Not a chance."

"Then you better hope she never finds out on her own," I said. "Particularly since someday Willow and Buffy are probably going to compare notes about that night."

"Oh man I hope not," Xander said. Then he looked at me. "Wait a minute! Are you thinking that you're going to be finding Buffy soon?"

"I think I'm getting close," I said.


	20. Chapter 20

The next morning I drove to Joyce Summers' gallery in the west end of Sunnydale. Hawk rode with me. I told him I would be flying back to Boston that night.

"Think I'll be staying with old Ripper for a little bit," Hawk said. "Help him to reduce the vampire population some."

"So you knew a slayer," I said.

"Yeah, Nikki. Nikki Wood."

"Good looking?"

"Like a brick house."

"Did you…?"

"Yeah, we did. And then we didn't."

We were quiet for a bit.

"Given what I've learned about slayers, I suppose Nikki…"

"Killed on a subway train in New York. 1977."

"Was it Spike?"

Hawk looked at me. "You don't miss much of anything, do you?"

"You don't show much, so in your case, the slightest reaction can speak a lot." The expression on Hawk's face told me that Spike would be in big trouble if they ever crossed paths.

"Both Giles and Pendergast, Nikki's watcher, told me when she died that she held the record for longevity in a slayer, more than seven years. She was activated in late 1969, made it to '77. Most slayers don't even make it to their 18th birthday."

"I think that's what bothers me about this more than anything," I said. "Why teenage girls? Why not boys, or men? Even women?"

"Been thinking about that for years," Hawk said. "Came up with a couple of things. First of all, look at a lot of the individual sports girls and women do; gymnastics, tennis, ice skating. You see girls reaching their athletic peak in their middle to late teens. By the time they reach their early twenties, they're actually past their prime."

"OK," I said. "So why not use teenage boys and men, who are stronger to begin with?"

"You remember what we were like when we were teenagers?" Hawk said. "Not that girls can't be violent and stupid themselves, but there is a difference. Think about what gang banger boy slayers would be like."

Hawk paused. Then started to speak again.

"I'm a badass. You know that. You something of a badass yourself. But I can't imagine having the balls to be a watcher. To be responsible for a girl you know you are probably going to outlive. To train her to fight a war against monsters that will kill her. The Watcher's Council really emphasizes detachment, but it ain't possible. The longer a slayer lasts, the more the watcher hopes. I saw how Nikki got to Pendergast. I see how Buffy is getting to Ripper."

"Buffy is just seventeen."

"Yeah, but she's already done things no other slayer has ever done. That vamp leader she dusted in Hemery was named Lothos. He was known as the slayer of slayers. Killed thirteen of them. Buffy dusted him when she was 15 years old. When she was 16, Buffy killed The Master, a vampire so powerful no watcher ever even _thought_ about sending a slayer after him."

"Didn't The Master kill Buffy?"

"Yeah, but she killed him longer and deader. And as an encore, she's killed Angelus and crippled, at least temporarily, Spike."

"So Giles has begun to hope," I said.

"Yep."

"And did Nikki Wood get to you too?"

"She did," said Hawk.


	21. Chapter 21

Alphonse was enthusiastically talking to a couple of flamboyantly dressed men about a painting. To me it looked like someone had eaten spaghetti and red sauce and vomited on the canvass, but the two men seemed to be impressed. Joyce met me at the bottom of the spiral staircase and we went up to her office after I introduced her to Hawk, who then went to look at some statues that were probably imported from someplace in Africa. The two men said they'd take the picture, and Alphonse told them they'd made a great choice.

This time, Joyce joined me in the other client chair instead of sitting behind her desk.

"This won't take long," I said. "Just got a couple of questions."

"Sure, if it helps you to find Buffy."

"When did you notify your ex-husband that Buffy had run away?"

"I tried to call him that day."

"Where did you try to call him?"

"His office and his house."

"In LA?"

"Yes."

"When did you hear from him?"

"Oh God, no more than a day before you called. He called me and started to ask questions."

"Does he know that Buffy is a slayer?"

Joyce sniffed and shook her head.

"Of course not."

"So what did you tell him?"

"The sorts of things he probably could find out on his own. Kendra's death, Buffy's expulsion, the fact that Buffy was cleared of suspicion in Kendra's death."

"Did you ask him why it took him so long to call you back?"

"Of course I did. He told me that business had taken him out of town."

"You could say that. He and his new wife have been living in New York."

"Wife?" Joyce said.


	22. Chapter 22

That night, I flew back to Boston. I had been in Sunnydale for three days, but it had felt like three months. Susan met me at the airport, wearing a sleeveless black t-shirt and white shorts and thin black flip flops that alone probably cost more than my entire wardrobe. Seeing her was like seeing iced lemonade after walking for a week in the desert. It probably didn't help that on the drive back there was a news story on the radio about some preacher being arrested for public indecency after being found hugging a naked woman. We stopped at my apartment on Marlborough Street, where we showered together, then tried out my bed, then showered again. The next morning, Susan went back to Cambridge and to Pearl, and I went to my office. There was another check from Hank Summers in the mail, but there was no phone message from him. No questions about how the case was going. I closed up the office and drove to New York.

Hank Summers worked for Sunset Development Associates, a Los Angeles based company that managed land investments. They had taken advantage of the real estate boom in Southern California in the 1970's and expanded into an international company. The New York Offices were located on the thirteenth and fourteenth floors of the Baxter Building. The receptionist at the desk was an attractive black woman with very white teeth and a very flattering white dress.

"Mr. Summers is out of the office," she chirped. "Shall I tell him who called for him?"

"Sure," I said, and handed her my card. "Do you know when he'll be back?"

"I certainly don't, Mr. Spenser," she said. "But I will certainly tell him you called when he comes back."

"Well I certainly thank you," I said.

I went down to the lobby, where there was a Doublemeat Palace. I've always found their chicken and beef sandwiches to be inedible. I ordered two, with fries and a Diet Coke and a coffee. As I sat at a table, I listened to a young teenage couple at the table next to me. They were talking about physics or biology or both, I could understand maybe every fourth word the boy said, every fifth word the girl said. The boy was taller than I was and had short brown hair. The girl was blond and very good looking, and maybe Buffy Summers' age. As I finished my sandwiches and my Coke and started on my coffee, a guy I recognized got off the elevator and walked into the restaurant. Another man was with him. While the other man went to the counter to order, the guy I knew walked up to my table and sat down.

"Hello, Jacky," I said.

Jacky Wax was the right hand man for Mr. Milo, the wealthiest crook on the Eastern Seaboard. He was also Mr. Milo's shooter. He looked pretty much the same as when I saw him last, but his hair was now predominantly white with black streaks instead of black with white streaks. It was still long, and slicked back. He was wearing a black suit with a black shirt and a white tie. He looked very much like the authentic gangster that he was.

"Waddya want with Hank Summers?" he asked.

"What, no preamble? No how are you, Spenser? No good to see you again, Spenser? No how's the weather in Boston, Spenser?"

"It ain't good to see you again, Spenser, you are a pain in the ass."

Jacky's companion joined us, bringing a tray with a coffee and a soft drink. Jacky took the coffee and his companion took the soft drink. The companion looked like another Jacky, but maybe twenty, twenty five years younger. His hair was long and slicked back like Jacky's, but jet black. He wore a black suit that matched Jacky's, but his shirt was blue and his tie was red.

I jerked my head towards the younger guy.

"Chip off the old block?"

Jacky nodded. "John Weatherwax, Junior."

"Pleased to meet you, Junior," I said.

Junior didn't acknowledge me, didn't sit down. He drank from his soft drink without taking his eyes off me. His gaze was flat. There was no anger, no concern, no affect. I noticed that he held the drink with his left hand and kept his right hand free and close to his jacket.

Jacky's gaze was very much the same, as were the positions of his hands.

"Hank Summers," he said. "I want you to tell me what your interest is in him."

"Well, I gather he is doing some business for you," I said. "In fact, I am guessing that you were in his office when I came to see him. You got my name from the receptionist, and decided to find out what was up."

"My Pop asked you a question, jackass," Junior said. "You're gonna want to answer it."

"Junior, go sit in the lobby and wait for me," Jacky said. He didn't take his eyes off me.

"You sure, Pop?"

"Yeah, I'm sure."

Junior took a long pull from his soft drink, threw away the cup, and walked out into the lobby. He didn't appear to be offended by his dismissal. I took a drink from my coffee. Jacky kept looking at me. I put the coffee cup down.

"Jacky, whatever your business is with Hank Summers, I don't know and chances are I don't give a rat's ass."

"Summers says he hired you to find his daughter."

"That's right."

"So, you just reporting to him?"

"That, and I have some questions to ask him concerning his daughter."

Jacky took a drink from his coffee and made a face. Doublemeat Palace's coffee was only slightly better than their sandwiches.

"Don't think we got a problem with that. We'd like to sit in while you talk to him."

"As long as he doesn't have a problem with it, I don't have a problem with it."

Jacky smiled. His teeth were white and I thought of a shark. "He won't have a problem with it."


	23. Chapter 23

Hank Summers office wasn't in the corner, but it was right next to the corner. It was only slightly smaller than Alaska. There was a bar and bathroom to the right as you walked in. The desk was big and oak and bare. On the wall were plaques for Associate of the Year and Most Property Sold. There were pictures of Hank Summers getting the plaques and Hank Summers playing golf. There were no pictures of Buffy or Dawn or even Heather Summers.

Summers came around the desk and shook my hand.

"Mr. Spenser, so good to see you again."

Jacky took a seat at one of the client chairs . Junior went to the bar and made himself a drink, then sat on a barstool. I sat in another client chair and moved it back a bit. It was probably nothing, but I didn't want either of the Waxes to be able to move behind me without me seeing it.

Summers went back behind his desk.

"So have you made any progress?"

"I'm not sure. I went to California and talked to Lt. Samuelson, then I went to Sunnydale and talked to Joyce and Dawn, the Sunnydale Police Department, some of her friends and faculty from school, even the school librarian."

"Sounds like you were thorough."

I shrugged modestly. "I try."

"But you haven't found anything."

"Not sure yet, I thought I would ask you some questions."

"Me? But what could I add?"

"Well, that's what I'm here to find out."

Summers spread his hands. "Can't say I know much, but I'll try."

"Joyce told me she tried to call you at your home and your office in LA the day Buffy left home, but she didn't hear from you until right before you hired me."

"Well, I've been in New York."

"Which you apparently failed to tell her."

"None of her business anymore, Spenser. We're not married."

"No, but you're the father of her children."

"Joyce is a better parent than I am. I admit that. She doesn't need my help."

"And the children?"

"What about them?"

I decided that a guy didn't have to be too bright or too decent to be Associate of the Year for Sunset Development.

"So you didn't check your LA messages when you were in New York."

"Not until about five days ago."

"That's when you found out about Buffy running away."

"That's right."

"And you decided right then and there to find someone to look for her."

"That's right, I called Lt. Samuelson. He was really helpful with the Hemery mess. I thought maybe he could help, or knew someone who could."

"And he told you about me."

"He did, but so far you don't seem to be doing very well."

"Well, as I said, I try. Do you mind if I check your messages?"

"What do you mean?"

"Pretty much what I said. I would like to listen to your messages at work and at home. Probably also look at the home caller ID, and the incoming calls log at the LA office for Sunset Development."

"I don't think my associates would want you doing that," Summers said, waving his hands vaguely at Jacky and Junior.

"We don't mind at all," Jacky said. "Me and Spenser have already made a deal. He just wants to find your kid. He ain't interested in our business. Besides, if you were stupid enough to make and take phone calls that would reveal our business with you, then Mr. Milo will be wanting to do business with someone a little smarter. And nobody cares for our severance package."

Jacky looked at Summers. Summers looked down, then back up at Jackie.

"Of course I didn't, Jacky. I haven't done anything that would cause you problems."

"And Spenser looking for your kid has nothing to do with our business either, right? And you want him to find your kid, right? So you should have no problem being honest with him," Jacky said.

"No Jacky, no problem at all."

"So, can I listen to your messages?" I asked.

"Sure, but I erased most of them."

"Then I'd like to look at the Caller ID."

Summers looked at me, then looked down. I barely heard what he said next.

"…..She called me."

"Who did?"

"Buffy," Summers said. He was looking at his desk. He wouldn't look at me. "Buffy called me."

"When?"

"The day she ran away from Joyce's. She called me from the bus station in Sunnydale, and then again from the bus station in LA."

"Where?"

"We used to live in the Valley. The station was there."

"Did you try to call her back?"

"How? She was calling from pay phones. Besides, I didn't hear the messages until days later."

"Bullshit," I said.

"What?"

"I call bullshit, Hank," I said. "I could believe that you didn't check your messages at home, but no way do I believe you don't check your office messages on a daily basis."

"You lying to him, Hank?" Jackie asked.

"No Jacky, of course not…I….yes…alright. I listened to the messages that day. But I was still in New York. I couldn't have done anything about it."

"You could have taken the next flight back to LA. You could have called Joyce and told her where Buffy was."

"No, you don't understand. I was in the middle of something important here." Summers looked at Jacky. Jacky shook his head.

"I'm not completely heartless, Hank." Jacky jerked his head towards Junior. "Besides, I'm a family man myself. We'd have let you go."

I looked at Junior. He looked every bit of dangerous as his old man. I wondered about the family life of sharks. But I suspected Jacky at least would have gone across the country to find his son if he'd run away from home.

"Business wasn't the real reason why you didn't go to LA was it?" I said. "And it wasn't the real reason why you didn't call your ex. Your new wife didn't want a 17 year old girl staying with you. And you didn't want Joyce to know about your new wife, much less see her. How old is she again?"

"Twenty two."

Junior snorted.

"How old?"

Summers still wouldn't look at me.

"Nineteen," he said.

"Let me guess, you met her on an island in the Caribbean."

"Crown Prince Club's got another facility in the south Pacific," Jacky said.

"Pop," Junior said. "He don't need to know that."

Jacky jerked his head towards me. "He don't give a shit. He just wants to find Summers' kid."

"So you got a new wife, one you like to think you've rescued from a life of debauchery." Hank Summers' face turned bright red but he still wouldn't look at me. "But this new wife doesn't want to have to compete with your high school daughter, particularly a runaway who's a high maintenance refugee from the Valley. And you don't want either your daughter or wife number one finding out about where you got wife number two, because you have just enough sense to be embarrassed about it. Am I right so far?"

Summers didn't say anything. His face just stayed red and he looked at the desk.

"She probably called you several times a day at first, then once a day as she ran out of money, then maybe every other day. But she kept calling, and you kept on listening and then erasing. Then, the phone calls stopped coming. That's when your minimal parental instinct kicked in, and you got worried. You called Joyce, then you called Samuelson, then you hired me. That about right?"

Summers stood up, his head down, and started towards the bathroom by the bar. Junior stepped in front of him.

"Do I have permission to listen to your phone messages, what there are of them, and see your caller ID and phone logs?" I asked.

"Sure whatever," Summers said.

I nodded to Jacky, who nodded to Junior. Junior let Summers pass into the restroom. The door slammed, and I heard the sounds of vomiting.

Junior looked at the door.

"Father of the fucking year," he said. "What a piece of work."

"Yeah," Jacky said, looking at me. "But he's _our _piece of work."

"And you can have him," I said.


	24. Chapter 24

Susan rescheduled her patients for the next week, and she and I flew back to LA the next day. After checking into our hotel, she went shopping while I went over to Hank Summers' house in the Valley. It was in a gated community, but when I stopped at the guard station, my name was on the list and a key to Summers' house and the code to his alarm system had been left in my name. I smelled the influence of Weatherwax and Son, and maybe even Mr. Milo.

The house was huge, and it was clear to me that the wrong Summers had come out ahead in the divorce settlement. The living room alone was bigger than the entire ground floor of Joyce's house in Sunnydale. I found Summers' phone in the living room with caller ID going back to about a month. As I'd hoped, Summers did not check his messages at home as often as he checked his messages at his office. The last fourteen messages hadn't been listened to, which went back about eight days.

I listened to the messages, and for the first time heard the voice of Buffy Summers.

The first message:

"Dad, it's me again. I've got a job now, and a place to stay. Why aren't you checking your messages? Guess I'll try you at your office again. Love you, Dad."

The second message:

"Dad, don't you check your messages at all? I'll call you again tomorrow at eight. Please be home or in your office. I need to talk to you. Love you, Dad."

The third message:

"Dad, are you OK? Do you need help? Tell me and I may be able to help you. You might be surprised at what I can do. Love you, Dad."

After listening to the messages, I briefly considered flying back to New York and strangling Hank Summers. But then I'd have to shoot Jackie and Junior Wax, and that just seemed to be too much trouble to take on account of a guy like Hank Summers.

The first and the second message were dated seven days ago. The third one was from six days ago. The calls came from different numbers, all identified as pay phones, but from the same area code. I checked the phone book and identified the area code as associated with Hollywood.

I sat in the dark in Summers' huge living room and thought. I thought about Buffy and Dawn growing up here amidst the chrome and white carpet. I thought about Joyce and Hank and Hank and Heather. I thought about the headache I was getting. Then I thought about Vincent del Rio, who was a very big crook I knew in LA.

I called his Bel Air home and got a guy, who when I gave him my name put me on hold, then I got another guy, and when I gave him my name he put me on hold and I got another guy. This happened six times before Vincent del Rio picked up.

"Senor Spenser," he said. "A day without hearing from you is a day like any other."

"Si Jefe," I said. "How's the family?"

"Daughter is in UCLA. She wants to be an Evolutionary Biologist."

"What's that?"

"Beats me. What business do you have with me?"

"I'm looking for a seventeen year old girl, ran away from home. The last calls she made to her father came from a Hollywood area code."

"That is not good," del Rio said.

"No, it's not. I'd like to talk to someone influential in the, ah, companionship industries about getting me in contact with some chickenhawks."

Del Rio chuckled. "Senor Spenser, you are showing your age. They haven't been called chickenhawks for some time. We call them recruiters."

"I'd like to talk to some recruiters then. I figure one of them, perhaps several, tried to recruit this girl."

"Tried?"

"Yeah, she's good looking."

"She white?"

"Yes."

"Uh huh. By any chance is she blonde?"

"Yes."

"Then probably you are looking for a recruiter who has succeeded."

"Actually, I'm looking for a recruiter who got damaged."

Del Rio was quiet for several moments.

"Spenser, this is optimistic even for you. Give me your number."

I gave him Hank Summers' home phone number. Then del Rio hung up and I hung up and I waited. About twenty minutes later, the phone rang again.

"Hello," I said.

"Is this Mr. Spenser?" a male voice said. The voice was low and cultured and the enunciation was flawless.

"It is."

"A gentleman of mutual acquaintance telephoned me and asked me to assist you. This gentleman is a very prominent member of the community and I wish for a continued good relationship with him. He tells me you are looking for a runaway."

"That's correct."

"I will not tolerate disruption of my business, Mr. Spenser. Our mutual acquaintance told me that you tend to blunder around in other people's business until you find what you are looking for, and you are difficult to dissuade. But, since no single item in the product line is indispensable you are welcome to conduct an _escorted_ search of relevant establishments until you locate the individual you are searching for."

"I appreciate the offer, but I suspect that won't be necessary. I am almost certain that the individual I am looking for will not be found in what I presume would be open air establishments on corner lots."

"Then I can arrange for tours of other establishments, if you can call them that. I warn you though, I can not guarantee my influence with their owners and managers, and many of the facilities are quite poor."

"And how are your facilities? Better street corners?"

My nameless conversational partner chuckled. "You would probably describe most of them as _merely_ poor."

"Like I said, I don't think I will find who I am looking for in an 'establishment' answerable to you or anyone else."

"Then what are you looking for?"

"Recruiters."

"You mean chickenhawks?"

"So, you're a traditional guy too."

"Pardon?"

"Yeah, I'm looking to talk to chickenhawks, recruiters, or blood sucking vulture bastards or whatever else you want to call them. Particularly anyone with black eyes, swollen faces, or broken limbs."

"Is this some sort of prank, Mr. Spenser?"

"Do you think our mutual acquaintance would have you call me over a prank?"

"No, he is a serious businessman, as am I. Do you know the Water Grill?"

"I do."

"When can you meet me there?"

"Two hours at the most."

"Very good, I will make reservations under your name. Our mutual acquaintance said that you would pay."

"Thoughtful of him."

Gulp.


	25. Chapter 25

As long as I was paying, I had Susan accompany me. She looked great in an elegant black dress. I had dressed up in slacks and a sport jacket that was large enough to accommodate the Smith and Wesson on my hip.

After we were seated, I watched the front door. Susan and I talked about Pearl staying with Lee Farrell, and about what Susan bought on her shopping trip, and about our favorite all time restaurants. About twenty minutes later, three men entered the restaurant. One was a tall, very thin and very elegantly dressed black man, the other two were a couple of white guys in fitted Armani suits who were just slightly smaller than water buffalos. The black man talked to the woman at the reservations counter, then came over to our table. The two really big white guys were escorted to a table next to ours. One of them had very close cropped, curly blond hair. The other was bald and had six golden earrings lining the auricle of his left ear.

"Nice suit," I said to the man who stood before our table.

"Brooks Brothers," the black man said. It was the voice of the man on the phone. "I am Mr. Franklin."

"You know who I am," I said, then gestured towards Susan. "This is Dr. Susan Silverman."

"You are a lovely woman," Franklin said, briefly taking Susan's hand. Then he shook my hand. "And you are very much as you were described to me."

"A middle aged thug?"

"You still consider yourself middle aged?"

"You're as young as you feel."

Franklin smiled and sat down. The server came over and we ordered. We each ordered the Blue Crab salad. I had a beer. Susan and Franklin had white wine.

"So, you want to talk to recruiters," Franklin said.

"I thought you called them chickenhawks," I said.

"Sometimes, but there's a lady present," Franklin smiled at Susan. It looked warm and it looked charming but it was neither. I thought about the incongruity of a man who was concerned about a woman's feelings but who made his living on the selling of girls. I've found such incongruities to be common in my line of work.

"I'm looking for a man with injuries. Someone with damage that you can't account for from your employee incentive programs." I jerked my head towards the guys sitting at the other table.

"On a very few occasions, the recruits have boyfriends with them who are protective. Most aren't protective enough. The girl you looking for have a protective boyfriend?"

"No. At least I don't think so." I thought about Willow's theory, and Angel accompanying Buffy. Talk about overkill.

"Are you going to tell me what you are talking about then?"

"I doubt you'd believe me if I told you. And I can guarantee that the guy I'm looking for won't be forthcoming about how he got his injuries."

"Because he'll be too embarrassed."

"Yes," I said. "Yes he will."

Franklin looked at me. Once he determined that I was serious, he nodded.

"I'll see what I can do," he said.

After that we ate our Blue Crab salads and talked of the Red Socks and the Angels and the Dodgers, and about whether the NFL would ever return a franchise to LA. Susan ate, or rather nibbled, silently. Just normal guy talk. Franklin was charming and intelligent and witty, but sometimes I saw a different creature peer out of his eyes. A creature that had the conscience of a monitor lizard. When Franklin got up and bid us farewell, the two big white guys stayed at their table and continued to eat, but two other men, one white and one black, not nearly so big but equally well dressed, and very graceful, got up from their table and joined Franklin at the front door. Then they left.

"Who were _those_ two men?" Susan asked.

"They were Franklin's real backup."

"So the two big men at the next table are just for show."

"Yes," I said.

"Did you know those men were there?"

"Not at first. Luckily, though, I had my own unofficial backup." I turned my head and nodded at a booth. Chollo, Vincent del Rio's extremely quick shooter, nodded back. Then he resumed his conversation with the strikingly beautiful Hispanic woman sitting across from him.


	26. Chapter 26

Susan and I checked out of the hotel the next morning and moved to Hank Summers' place. He wasn't using it, and I thought it'd be a safer place. I didn't trust Franklin, who seemed a little too interested in Susan. Besides, this was the number Franklin knew to call. Susan was not enthusiastic about staying in the home of a nitwit like Hank Summers, not even when I suggested we could act like a couple of rock stars and trash the place.

I called Hawk at Giles' number, and he agreed to come down. The next time I'd be meeting Franklin, it wouldn't be in a high class restaurant. Then, instead of trashing the place, we each sat down and started to read. Susan was reading Encyclopedia of the Human Brain by V.S. Ramachandran. I was reading Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt by David McCullough. An hour and a half later, the phone rang and it was from the guard station. I told them to let Hawk through.

"I do believe my own keen detective insight has determined that the boy at the guard station was nervous about letting me in," Hawk said. He was carrying a big gym bag, which he laid down by the door.

"That's because you black guys scare him," I said.

"You thank that it? Hi Susan." He came up and gave Susan a peck on the cheek. Then he looked around. "Hank Summers like his houses big."

"Just like his office."

"He probably compensating because his wing wang is teeny tiny. You white guys are always compensating."

"I'll have you know that my Honeybuns is perfectly well endowed," Susan said.

"Too much information," Hawk said. "More than I wanted to know."

"Is that right?" Susan said. "Didn't you guys use to work out at the same gym and shower in the same showers when you were boxing?"

Hawk grinned.

"Yeah, but I too much of a gentleman to look."

Soon we all returned to our reading. Hawk reached into his massive gym bag, moved a sawed off shotgun out of the way, and took out a massive book, The Chimpanzees of Gombe, Patterns of Behavior by Jane Goodall. We were still reading when Hank Summers' phone rang, and I picked it up and heard Franklin on the other end.

"I have some people to talk to you."

"Where at?"

"My office, it's close to Hyperion and Titan." Franklin gave me directions.

"Good," I said. "We'll be down in an hour and a half."

"Ah," Franklin said. "Will the beautiful Susan be accompanying you?"

"No," I said. "I'm bringing someone else."

"Very good," Franklin was unflappable. "We will see you in an hour and a half then."


	27. Chapter 27

Franklin's office was in a squat and ugly tan metal industrial building. The two big guys who had accompanied Franklin into the Water Grill were standing in front of the door, but this time they were not nearly so well dressed. They each wore short sleeved shirts out and over their pants. The guy with the short blond hair had tattoos covering both arms.

The bald one with the earrings gestured towards the side of the building.

"We need to search you," he said. "We don't allow pieces in Franklin's office."

"Nope," Hawk and I said simultaneously.

"Sorry," I continued. "We both think it's more practical for us to remain heeled."

The blond guy made the mistake of stepping towards Hawk. "Then maybe we'll just take them off you."

The next moment, the blond guy was on the ground holding his throat and gasping for breath, and I had my gun out and centered on the bald guy.

"Nope means no," I said.

"OK, that's enough," someone said.

The two smaller men I'd seen leaving the Water Grill with Franklin were now standing about fifteen feet away by the front door. Both were well dressed in full suits, minus the vests. The coats were open.

"I better not see either of your hands go inside those jackets," I said.

The smaller black guy, who I could now see was probably in his fifties, looked at the bald man.

"Thrash," he said. "Help Tiny up and go take a break."

"But, Elijah, shouldn't we...?" Thrash said.

Elijah gave Thrash a hard look. The larger man put his head down.

"I shouldn't have to repeat myself, Thrash."

I looked at Hawk.

"Thrash?" I said.

"Tiny?" Hawk said.

Thrash nodded and hauled Tiny to his feet. Tiny was still hacking and coughing, and weaved a bit as Thrash walked him into the parking lot.

Elijah and the little white guy held their empty hands up around their shoulders. The white guy looked to be barely twenty, with a sharp nose. Both men looked amused.

"I apologize for those two." Elijah said. "The word didn't get out to them that you were honored guests."

"Honored guests nothing," Hawk said. "You two testing us."

Elijah's look of amusement intensified.

"Perhaps a little, but don't be insulted. We knew you two were more than a match for these two stumblebums."

"You're lucky we didn't put those 'stumblebums' into the ground," I said.

The white guy chuckled. "Doesn't matter. We can always get more stumblebums. And now we have a better idea of how good you two are."

Elijah jerked his head towards the front door to the office.

"If you will follow Vincent and myself," he said. "We can complete our business."

"Well you sure ain't going to be following us," Hawk said.

I put up my gun, and we went in. The inside of Franklin's building wasn't nearly as elegant as he or his two actual bodyguards. Concrete floor, girders with no walls, and it was entirely unfurnished except for a single metal desk, which was covered by three computers. There was also a metal conference table surrounded by eight folding chairs. Three of the chairs were occupied by men in their late teens or early twenties. One of them stood out in particular with his right arm in a sling and a fading black left eye. Franklin was leaning against the metal desk, impeccably dressed as ever, this time in a grey suit and pink shirt and red tie. Elijah went and stood to Franklin's right, Vincent went over and stood to his left. They were careful not to stand too close to one another, making it more difficult for even two men to cover all three of them.

Franklin looked at Hawk. "I think I would have preferred a visit from the beautiful Susan."

Hawk didn't take his eyes off of Elijah, but looked mildly amused.

"What, you don't think black is beautiful?" Hawk said. Franklin smiled.

"This is Hawk," I said. "He's here to hold my hand if I get nervous."

"Hawk," Elijah said. "Knew another man a long time ago named after an animal."

"A predator?" Hawk said.

"That he definitely was," Elijah said. "Even though he was named after a harmless little rodent."

I went over to the men sitting at the table. They were all looking very nervously at Franklin, Elijah, and Vincent. I stopped in front of the man with the sling and the fading black eye.

"Hey," I said.

The man jumped slightly and looked at me.

"How'd you get the shiner?" I said.

"A boyfriend tried to get a little rough with me," he said.

"Looks like he succeeded."

"Yeah, leastways I'm not the one in the hospital."

I looked at Franklin and his two associates. "I'm taking a picture out of my jacket pocket."

Franklin nodded. "Go ahead."

I took out Buffy Summers' junior picture, given to me by Joyce Summers.

"Ever seen her before?" I asked.

The man's eyes widened. His left hand started involuntarily to his right arm, but then he stopped himself.

"No, never seen her," he said.

I looked at Hawk. Hawk smiled slightly.

"Bingo," he said.


	28. Chapter 28

It turned out that the three recruiters in Franklin's office worked together as a team, therefore they had all seen Buffy Summers. Hawk and I took them over to a donut shop about two blocks away. Franklin sent Vincent with us. I didn't want Franklin to listen in on our conversation. I thought he might be tempted to send Elijah, Vincent or both over to find Buffy before I could see her. Hawk quietly assured me that he didn't think it would make a difference. That neither of them, or both together, would be good enough to contain, much less harm, Buffy Summers. But, I didn't want to take the chance.

I sat in a booth with the three recruiters. Hawk and Vincent sat about three tables away. I ordered a couple of donuts and a coffee, but didn't order them anything. None of them complained.

Lenny, the slightly better dressed and less scruffy looking of the three, usually made the first contact, greeting the kids at the bus station and offering them a place to stay. The smarter ones turned him down, at which time the other two, Phil and Karl, would follow them, and when the opportunity presented itself, assault them and take their money. I suspected there was sometimes a sexual assault included. Then, Lenny would "find" them again and repeat the offer. Sometimes, a staged fight would occur between Lenny and either Phil or Karl to enhance Lenny's credibility. Lenny would take the money back, but then hold onto almost all of it as "rent". The kids would then be expected to work off the rest of the rent. Just a trio of all American boys.

"So tell me what happened when you saw this girl," I said.

Lenny glanced covertly over towards Vincent. "You aren't going to tell Franklin what I tell you, are you?"

"I'm sure he will ask you himself, and you will be compelled to tell him the truth, just as you are being compelled to do now."

Lenny swallowed.

"Yeah, I saw her at the subway station," he said. "I split my time between the bus station and the subway stations. She had the look, you know?"

"Lost."

"Yeah, lost. Anyways, she was just the sort that's most popular with customers, you know? Cute, petite, all American. So I come up to her and ask her if she has money and a place to stay. She tells me none of my business. I tell her that Los Angeles is a dangerous place. She says to go away. So I step back and nod to Phil, who's standing about a hundred feet away, and he starts to follow her."

I looked at Phil.

"So what happened then?"

Phil's head ducked down. He clearly didn't want to talk. I put my hand on his cast and sling. I didn't care what he wanted. When he started to talk, he was very quiet and I could barely hear him.

"I shoulda known there was something different about her, the way she looked," Phil said. "I think she actually saw Lenny signaling me. She looked right at me as she walked by."

"But you followed her."

"Yeah, I followed her. Then, when the sun goes down, she starts to act really weird. Most of these kids have just enough sense to try to stay out in public places, you know? It usually takes awhile for me an' Karl to find a place to take them. But she starts walkin' into the nearest alley. Then she puts her overnight bag, kind of a leather gym bag, down. I walk up to her, and Karl walks up to her from the other side. She starts towards the bag and I grab her arm and say 'Ah! Ah! Ah!'"

"Then what happened?" I said.

"That's all I remember," Phil said. "I woke up in the hospital."

"OK," I said. I turned to Karl. "Sounds like you're up."

Karl looked even more uneasy than Phil. He hunched down, looked at the table.

"Look at me, Karl," I said.

He slowly looked up.

"What happened next?"

"I….I went to grab her bag while Phil grabbed her. I tried to pick it up but Christ, it was heavy. I mean the way she was carrying it, I thought it was full of clothes, but it must have weighed more than fifty pounds.

"Then I hear a crack, and Phil starts to scream, and I turn and see that she's just kind of twisted Phil's arm, with one hand, and she's looking at me. She then hits him in the side of the head with her other hand, like this." Karl mimicked a very short punch, about 8 inches. "Phil falls down and over me and doesn't move. She then grabs me by the shirt collar and picks me up like I weigh nothing. She says 'Hands off the bag,' then throws me, one handed, into a brick wall."

"How far was the brick wall?" I asked.

"About fifteen feet."

"No way! That's impossible!" Lenny said. Phil and Karl looked at him. I looked at him. He shut up.

"What happened then?" I said.

"Nothing," Karl said, looking away. "I was laying up against the wall. She picked up her bag and left."

I looked at Karl. He was lying, but he wasn't going to say anything more in front of the other two.

"Phil and Lenny, go sit with Hawk and Vincent."

"All right," I said to Karl after they'd left. "What really happened after that?"

"Are you with the government?" Karl asked. "I mean, she's a genetic super girl or bionic or somethin' isn't she?"

I tried to look cagey. "I can't say anything about that. Let's just say she's special."

Karl swallowed. He looked over at the other table with Vincent and Hawk and his two fellow recruiters.

"She picked up her bag, and went over behind the nearest dumpster. I didn't dare move, 'cause I knew she was still there. Phil was just laying there, and it was hurting me to breath. Later I found out that two of my ribs were cracked in the back."

"So basically, you're all waiting," I said.

"Yeah. Anyway, about 15 minutes later these three guys walk into the alley. We seen them around before, and we stayed out of their way, y'know? We called them 'the stalkers'. There was something about them, something really creepy. Anyway, they all come over and stand around Phil, who's still out cold, and one of 'em says 'Look, free food'. Then, the next second, the one who spoke, he's gone."

"Gone?"

"Yeah, gone. He kind of grunts, and I think I see a freakin' arrow sticking out of his chest, then he's gone. There's just some grey dust in the air where he was. The other two look up, then…."

"Then?"

"The girl jumps over the dumpster. Not out from behind it, _over_ it. I mean the thing is about six feet tall and she's sailing over it with another five feet to spare. She lands on one of the other two guys, and then he's gone too. The other one, the one who's left, he yells something and then starts to run away, really fast. She runs after him, also really fast. I hear fighting, but not for long. Then she walks back into the alley, shaking some of that grey dust out of her hair. She goes behind the dumpster and comes out with her bag, then she looks right at me, and walks towards me."

Karl was telling his story in a kind of a hysterical whisper. And the pitch of the whisper was increasing.

"She comes up to me, and says, 'If you tell anyone you saw this, no one will see you again'. Then her eyes, they changed."

"Changed?"

"Yeah, they were brown, but they turned kind of yellow, just for a second. Then they were back to their normal color, but I got the point. She walked out of the alley. After a while, I got up, looked down the alley, but there was no sign of her. Then I got Phil up, he's out on his feet but he's able to walk, and we went to Lenny's place, and he took us to the hospital."

"What did you tell Lenny?"

"Boyfriend trouble. Big boyfriend trouble."

"And do you know where she is now?"

"Yeah. She's working as a waitress at a diner about six blocks from here. But she's no waitress, is she?"

"No," I said. "She's not. What's the name of the diner?"

Karl told me. Then he looked at me.

"I mean, you already know about her right? It's OK for me to tell you, right?"

"Sure," I said. "But now you're in a Catch 22 situation."

"A what?"

"A damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. Franklin will want to know what you told me, and you won't be able to keep him from getting it out of you. But if you tell him, and she comes after you….Vincent, Elijah, and Franklin together won't be able to protect you. You know that."

Karl turned very pale.

"Ah Jesus," Karl said.

"I suggest you leave LA," I said.

"But…."

"Go. Hawk and I will keep Vincent occupied."

Karl got up and left. I went over to Hawk, Vincent, and the other two.

"Where's he going?" Vincent asked.

"I suggested he leave."

"Leave?"

"Yeah."

"Leave here?"

"Leave LA," I said. "And I suggest you let him go."

"Or what?" Vincent said.

"Or Hawk and I would be the very least of your potential problems."

Vincent looked at me, then at Hawk.

Then he looked at Phil and Lenny.

"Scram," he said.

Vincent looked at me after they left. "You're serious."

"Very."

Vincent nodded to himself. "OK. I'll tell Franklin. Are we done here?"

My stomach felt a little sour. I didn't want things to be done. I wanted to see Franklin and associates out of business. But, I knew if it wasn't Franklin it would be someone else, and I also suspected that somewhere up the line Franklin answered to Vincent del Rio. Ultimately, I do what I can, not what I should.

"Yeah," I said. "We're done."

Vincent stood up, and nodded his head at Hawk.

"See you around," he said.

"You think Vincent and Franklin will leave this alone?" I asked Hawk after Vincent left.

Hawk shrugged. "Vincent ain't stupid. He could tell you were serious."

"Do you think Franklin will listen to him?"

"I think Franklin is even less stupid than Vincent," Hawk said.

"I agree," I said. "Good thing."


	29. Chapter 29

The diner was your basic greasy spoon. Faux wood grain and shiny red vinyl and dull chrome. There was the smell of greasy hamburger and fried chicken and meatloaf. Most of the customers looked like truck drivers. The waitresses were all in white dresses, with red checked hems and collars, and tennis shoes. Susan and I walked in, and I spotted Buffy Summers right away. We watched Buffy bus a table and wipe it off, then went over and sat at the table.

Buffy came over to our table. Samuelson's description was accurate. She was probably no more than 5 foot 2 inches and 105 to 110 pounds. Her hair was back, and her makeup was light but looked good. She was very pretty. The nametag on her dress said "Anne", which I knew to be her middle name.

"What would you like to drink?" she asked as she handed us the menus. It was the voice on Hank Summers' answering machine. I wanted to stand up and yell "_Eureka! I've found you_!"

"I'll take a cup of coffee, decaffeinated," I said.

Susan asked for a Diet Coke. She was also very good at inhibiting her inclination to yell _Eureka_. Buffy said that they only had Diet Pepsi. Susan made a little face, but went ahead and ordered the Diet Pepsi.

Susan and I both watched her walk away. As she did so, one of the truck driver guys at the next table reached out and tried to swat her on the rear. She dodged aside without altering her step.

We looked at our menus. When Buffy returned with our drinks, Susan ordered a salad with French dressing. I ordered a grilled ham and cheese sandwich and a salad with French dressing. The salads were very basic; lettuce, cheap croutons, and a single cherry tomato. The ham and cheese sandwich was barely edible. But Buffy was attentive, refilling our drinks when appropriate and checking in on us regularly. But she never smiled.

It took only 20 minutes for Susan to finish half her salad and declare that she was done. We got up and went to the register, and Buffy checked us out. I handed her an envelope with my payment.

"What's this?" she said.

"Your tip," I said. The envelope contained the entire amount, in cash, that Hank Summers had paid me to find her, minus my traveling and meal expenses. It also contained my card and a note. She held up the envelope and looked at it, then at me. For a millisecond, I thought I saw the yellow eyes that Karl had been talking about.

"I ask again, what's this?"

"And I say again, it's your tip. Have a good day, Anne."

Susan and I walked out. We went to our rental car parked across the street, got in, and waited. It was early evening, and the car was now in the shade. I turned the car on and ran it briefly to cool it with the air conditioner. Then I opened the windows, and we sat and waited.

"Is this what a stakeout is like?" Susan asked.

"I suspect this won't take as long as most stakeouts."

It still took long enough that Susan pulled out the Ramachandran book and started to read. I watched the diner. About twenty minutes later, Buffy came out, spotted us, and walked across the street.

She leaned into the window of the car and gave me a very hard look.

"You want to explain what this is about, or do I yank you through the window?" she said.

I felt a tension in my chest, but my voice was steady.

"I thought the note was self explanatory," I said.

She pulled it out and read it.

BUFFY,

ENCLOSED IS THE AMOUNT OF MONEY THAT YOUR FATHER PAID ME TO FIND YOU. JOYCE AND DAWN SEND YOU THEIR LOVE. NONE OF THEM, NOR GILES, WILLOW, XANDER, OZ, OR CORDELIA, KNOW WHERE YOU ARE. MY FRIEND AND I WOULD JUST LIKE TO TALK TO YOU.

"My Dad paid you to find me," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"But you haven't told him where I am."

"No."

"And you haven't told Giles or my mother where I am."

"No."

"And you're giving _me_ the money that my Dad paid you to find me in cash."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I do what I want, because you need it more than I do, and because your father's money should be supporting you."

"Isn't giving me the money in cash just an invitation for me to get robbed?"

"I know that you are more than capable of protecting yourself."

Buffy nodded. "Uh huh. And who is she?"

"This is Susan Silverman, the love of my life."

"This is not the best neighborhood to bring the love of your life."

"I'm pretty good at protecting myself too," I said. "And Susan is tougher than she looks."

Buffy looked at me. "You _know_. What I am, I mean."

"Yes," I said.

Buffy nodded again.

"I get off at 9:00, then I do my other thing until about 1:00."

She handed me a sheet from her ordering pad. It had an address and apartment number on it.

"Meet me there at 1:00 this morning. If anyone is there other than you two, I will know about it and you will regret it."

"We'll be there," I said. "Alone."


	30. Chapter 30

At 12:50, Susan and I were waiting outside the door of what I guessed was Buffy's apartment.

"I'm nervous," Susan said.

"Me too," I said.

Fifteen minutes later, Buffy opened the apartment from the inside. I would have sworn when we arrived that the apartment was empty. Buffy was now dressed in a black t-shirt and black jeans and a black knit cap. Slung over her shoulder was a crossbow. In her right hand was a wooden stake with an elaborately carved handle. There was grey dust on her shirt and pants. I recognized the dust.

Buffy stood aside to let us in. The apartment was a tiny studio, with a bed and a kitchenette and bath to the side. It was maybe half the size of my hotel room in Sunnydale. Buffy shrugged off the crossbow, expertly folded up the ends and put it into the same leather gym bag I was sure Karl had mentioned earlier. The wooden stake she laid reverently on the inn table next to her bed. Then she went over and shut the door behind us and crossed her arms.

"How did you find me, and what do you want from me?" she asked.

I told her everything, with the exception of my conversation with her father in New York, and my second conversation with Xander. She listened. As she listened, she started to relax. When I finished, she was sitting on her bed.

"You have people who love you, Buffy," I said. "Your mother and sister and friends and even Giles."

"You didn't mention my father," Buffy said. Her voice was brittle.

"I suspect he loves you too," Susan said. "But his love is probably not as productive or true as your mother's."

"Spoken like a true shrink," Buffy said. "But you're also right."

"We shrinks are known to be right on rare occasions," Susan said dryly.

"So what happened in that final fight with Angelus?" I asked.

Buffy gave a brief and bitter chuckle.

"What do you think happened?"

"I think you two fought. Spike probably overcame Drusilla and fled the premises with her. You killed the other vampires, and it was down to just the two of you. I'm not sure what happened then, the fight may have been close. Or, you may have been more distracted than he was, and he was pressing the advantage. At any rate, you fought until something went through him, then he wasn't fighting anymore. Then I'm _really_ not sure what happened. I'm guessing maybe you killed him, then realized afterwards that Willow must have tried the spell again, and returned his soul."

As Buffy listened, her expression went from cynical and resolute to shocked. Then, her face started to crumble, and I wasn't looking at a slayer. I was looking at a seventeen year old girl whose heart had been broken. She cried, then sobbed. She laid down on her bed, on her side, and cried some more in great gasps. I looked at Susan. Susan watched Buffy. Susan, I think, was more comfortable with this situation than I was. She probably had people crying hard in her office at least once a week. She bought a box of Kleenex for her office every time she went shopping. Even so, at one time Susan reached out her hand as if to touch Buffy, but then pulled her hand back again. We waited.

Eventually, Buffy sat up and looked at me.

"You're very good at figuring things out, aren't you?"

"Yes he is," Susan said. "And he's a very good friend to have."

Buffy looked at me and nodded.

"You were very close," Buffy said. "Angel, Angelus that is, and I fought. A long time ago Acathla had been killed by some knight with a mystical sword, and when he died he was turned to stone. Angelus woke Acathla up by King Arthuring the sword out of him. It was an enchanted sword, you see. But this knight had another enchanted sword, one that Kendra had brought with her. So we fought each other with mystical swords.

"And you're right, Mr. Spenser, at first Angelus was winning. He drove me out of the house and into the courtyard. Then he disarmed me, held the sword out in front of my face, and taunted me about having nothing left. Then, he tried to stab me in the face."

"And is that when Willow's spell took effect?" I asked.

"No. I caught the sword between my palms, then shoved the pommel back into Angelus' face. Then I picked up my sword and drove him back. I was all I had Mr. Spenser. I had to win or the world would be sucked into Hell. And there were people in the world who I still loved. So I fought for them. I drove Angelus back, forced him to his knees and disarmed him. And _that's _when Willow's spell took effect. At first I thought he was faking. I mean, I had him cold, it would have been his last card, and it is exactly the sort of thing Angelus would have pulled. But when he looked at me, so confused, and particularly when the first thing he noticed was where he had cut me, and all he said was 'you're hurt', I knew. That kind of little concern was not a touch that Angelus could have faked. It was Angel, he was back."

Buffy shook her head. Fighting back more tears.

"But you see, Mr. Spenser, Dr. Silverman, Angelus used his blood to pull the sword out of Acathla, to wake him. And only his _life's blood _would shut Acathla down again. When he got his soul back, Angel didn't remember what he'd done. The memories would have come back eventually, but the gateway to Hell was opening too rapidly from Acathla's mouth to wait for that to happen."

Susan and I shared a look. I doubt either one of us could visualize what she was talking about with regards to Acathla's mouth.

"So here I was. Angel was back. But there was only one way for me to stop the world from being sucked into Hell."

Buffy wiped her eyes. When she raised her head again, she looked devastated.

"So I told him to close his eyes. Then I kissed him. Then I stepped back and ran him through."

"Oh my God," Susan said.

"Jesus Christ," I said.

"Angel didn't turn into dust. His eyes shot open. He held out his hand. His expression, his expression was awful. I don't know whether it was because I had betrayed him, or whether he was remembering the things Angelus had done while he was gone, or both. But anyway, there he was, then he fell back into Acathla, and then he was gone."

"Dust?" I said.

"No, I think he was sucked into Hell."

Susan sat down on the bed next to Buffy. Buffy started to cry again. Susan embraced her. Professional distance, in this case, be damned. Susan's own cheeks were wet. I turned away. My vision blurred.


	31. Chapter 31

Buffy and Susan went to sleep on Buffy's bed around 3:00 that morning. I leaned up against the side of Buffy's bed and dozed. At 5:00, I woke up to see Buffy up and around.

"You're up early," I said.

"I go back to work at 6:00," Buffy said. "I work 6:00 AM to 9:00 PM, it's what keeps me in these luxurious digs. Mitch pays me in cash so I'm probably guilty of tax evasion."

"You don't even look tired."

"I only require two to four hours of sleep a night."

"So you work 15 hours and then go hunting vampires for another 4 hours?"

"Yeah," she said. "It keeps me busy."

Buffy looked at me.

"Hey, Mr. Spenser, your eyes look kind of red."

"Well sure, I didn't get much sleep last night. Then there was the crying."

"My story made _you _cry?"

"Sure," I said.

Buffy smiled, the first genuine smile I'd seen from her. It was a nice smile. "I thought you would be too tough for that."

"You're tougher than I am," I said.

Buffy laughed, the first genuine laugh I'd heard from her. It was a nice laugh.

"That's not the kind of toughness I meant," she said.

"But that's probably the kind of toughness I meant," I said. "I wasn't referring to super strength."

I looked at Susan. She was still asleep. "I don't think, if the positions were reversed, I could have done what you did, even to save the world."

Buffy looked at Susan.

"You really love her, don't you?"

"I do."

Buffy shrugged, then picked up her waitress uniform and went into the bathroom. Before she closed the door, she looked at me.

"She's beautiful," she said.

Buffy closed the door and soon I heard the shower running. Susan woke up.

"What time is it?" she said.

I told her. Susan got off the bed. There wasn't really any place to sit except the bed. We stood and waited for Buffy to finish in the shower. We waited as the shower went off, and we heard a hair dryer. Then Buffy came out in her waitress outfit, barefoot, and started to put on her socks and shoes.

Then she stood up and looked at us.

"So, what happens now?" she asked.

"Well," I said. "I personally think you ought to go back to Sunnydale. You have people there who love you, who could help you through this."

Buffy shook her head.

"No," she said. "I'm not ready to go back. I nearly lost a lot more people I loved than just Angel when I was there."

Susan looked at Buffy. Her gaze was intense.

"Are you sure that's the reason why you don't want to go back?" Susan asked. "To protect your family?"

Buffy looked thoughtful.

"No," she said. "The big reason is that I'm just not ready to return to Sunnydale. I'm not ready to face anyone there yet. I mean, for example, I know Xander lied to me about Willow's message. I knew it as soon as Angel's soul came back to him. But if he'd told me the truth, Angelus would have killed me. I want to kill him and thank him at the same time. I pretty much feel the same about everybody back there. It would have been so much easier if Willow hadn't restored Angel's soul, but because of her spell I was able to see him one last time. My mother kicked me out of the house, and Snyder kicked me out of school, and those things probably helped me to focus, but they still hurt."

"You know your mother really didn't mean it when she told you not to come back," I said.

"Yeah," Buffy said. "I know….But I'm still not ready to go back. I mean I know I will go back to Sunnydale eventually, but I'm just not ready yet."

"Well, I sure can't drag you back," I said.

"That's true," Buffy said. "And if you even tell them where I am, and they come to see me, I'll see them coming before they'll see me, and I'll be gone."

Nobody said anything for a full minute.

"Mr. Spenser," Buffy said. "Could you talk to my Mom, Giles, even my Dad? Tell them that you found me and that I'm OK, that I'm stable? But don't tell them _where_ you found me?"

I nodded.

"Yeah, I can do that," I said. "But they won't like it."

"I think Giles will understand," Buffy said.

"Giles may, but your mother won't," I said. "Neither will Dawn."


	32. Chapter 32

Not only did Joyce and Giles hate it, so did Hawk, although I think he understood even better than Giles did. Since he had an idea of where Buffy was, Hawk elected to leave Sunnydale and return to Boston with Susan and me. I even tried to call Hank Summers, but he wouldn't answer the phone. I left him a message that his daughter was OK. I later found out he'd been sent to Toronto.

The summer passed, and in September, Susan and I were out walking along the Concord River with Pearl. Pearl had slowed down. She no longer tried to chase squirrels, but she still noticed them and occasionally barked at them. Susan's cell phone rang.

"I thought you shut that thing off when we went for walks," I said.

"Sometimes I have emergencies, sweetie," Susan said. She put the phone to her ear. "Hello. Yes, Rosa, go ahead and put the call through."

Rosa was one of the people who worked for Susan's answering service.

"Hello, Buffy," Susan said.

I called Pearl back to me and listened, at least to Susan's end of the conversation.

"Yes, that's wonderful. I knew she would have no problems taking you back….Good heavens! Zombies?......And Principal Snyder let you go back to school?.....Very good."

Susan's brow furrowed. "So how did Giles and Willow respond when you told them about Angel?... I see. Have you told your mother or Xander yet?.....No, I understand….Yes, he's right here, do you want me to put him on?....Hold on."

Susan held the phone out to me.

"Hello," I said.

"Hi," Buffy said.

"So you returned home," I said.

"Well," said Buffy. "In the end, it _is _home."

"And that's where the heart is."

"Well, actually my heart is split between home and Hell, which, not coincidentally, is right next door."

"How's Dawn?" I asked.

"Still not wanting to speak to me," she said. "She's kind of mad about her birthday."

"She may be twelve, but that may not go away for awhile."

"Believe me, I am well aware of how long Dawnie can hold a grudge."

She was quiet for a few seconds.

"I just wanted to thank you, for you know, finding me. Mom still got this really pissed look when I said your name, but I think Giles really appreciates what you did. And I didn't even know that you and Giles shared a friend. I think Giles called him when I came back."

"Good," I said. "I don't think either Hawk or Giles were comfortable with the secret of your location hanging between them."

"It was really good to see two people who cared about me, even if you hadn't met me before. It was really good for me to talk about…what happened…to you and to Susan. It made the rest of the summer go easier."

"I'm glad."

"I know," Buffy said. "Thank you. And keep on loving Susan."

"I will," I said.

And I have.

END


End file.
